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Below is a photo taken by Harry Henderson of the common buckeye butterfly.  Harry said when he took this photo there were a group of five buckeyes at the prairie intensely interested in the nodding onion nectar.

This was great to hear as the common buckeyes are actually not so common in the area and a group of five is indicative of some satisfactory habitat for this species.  These butterflies cannot survive the winters here in PA and some will fly south every fall to overwinter and north every summer to repopulate northern zones.  Host plants for common buckeyes includes some plants in the Scrophulariaceae and Acanthaceae plant families, as well as the genus Plantago.

Earlier in August when I was visiting the north disjunct prairie at Big Hollow I spotted some dodder (Cuscuta sp.).  Dodders are interesting pure parasitic plants that tap into host plants to suck their sap and gain all thier energy in this way.

A bushclover species was one of two host species this dodder found suitable

Early goldenrod was the other host

We are still not sure of the species, but we suspect it is an uncommon species, as the common species C. gronovii grows in riparian areas usually using jewel weed as a host.  Harry suggested that we're probably dealing with either C. corylii or C. pentagona as these are the two mostly likely to inhabit xeric sites. Both species are state listed.  While I'd prefer to make a definitive ID before posting, I would also like the blog to be true to the prairie's phenology so I will leave it at this for now and update the blog with another post on this dodder in the future.