Orange before King's Day. Dryas iulia, Julia Heliconian, on Lantana, Hortus Botanicus, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Well, it can't be helped. I'm a day or so early with this Orange posting. Day after tomorrow is KIng's Day. The birthday is then celebrated here of His Majesty Willem-Alexander, by the Grace of God, King of the Netherlands, Prince of Orange-Nassau, etc. etc. etc. Orange will be the color of choice and exuberance, and you won't be able to miss it anywhere in The Netherlands.
In an earlier posting I've given the background of the scientific name of Dryas iulia because there's lots of misinformation about it: www.flickr.com/photos/87453322@N00/5455277749/in/photolis.... Allow me now to add something more.
Johan Christian Fabricius (1745-1808), great Danish entomologist who first described our Butterfly, himself never traveled very far. But he had many friends and acquaintances who did. One of these was intrepid and versatile Julius Philip Benjamin von Rohr (1735-1793). Rohr was a Prussian in Danish service, and he started out as a surveyor. He was sent to the Danish West Indies - now the US Virgin Islands - as an engineer of sorts, but soon also became a formidable plant collector and naturalist, sending his finds back to anyone who'd have them in Europe (especially in England and in Denmark). Moreover, he was also interested in the economic aspects of (colonial) plantation agriculture especially in view of the recent end of Danish slave trading across the Atlantic. 1793 saw him on his way to Danish slaving forts on the West Coast of Africa in order to help transform them into a plantation economy. He died soon after his arrival. But he'd already sent Fabricius his exemplar of what that great entomologist called a bit drearily 'Papilio julia' (1775). Fabricius notes down Rohr's name diligently next to his description with the remark: 'Habitat in America' (the Butterfly, that is). Happily around 1805 Jakob Hübner (1761-1826) devised the name 'Dryas', as I wrote in my earlier posting.
Orange before King's Day. Dryas iulia, Julia Heliconian, on Lantana, Hortus Botanicus, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Well, it can't be helped. I'm a day or so early with this Orange posting. Day after tomorrow is KIng's Day. The birthday is then celebrated here of His Majesty Willem-Alexander, by the Grace of God, King of the Netherlands, Prince of Orange-Nassau, etc. etc. etc. Orange will be the color of choice and exuberance, and you won't be able to miss it anywhere in The Netherlands.
In an earlier posting I've given the background of the scientific name of Dryas iulia because there's lots of misinformation about it: www.flickr.com/photos/87453322@N00/5455277749/in/photolis.... Allow me now to add something more.
Johan Christian Fabricius (1745-1808), great Danish entomologist who first described our Butterfly, himself never traveled very far. But he had many friends and acquaintances who did. One of these was intrepid and versatile Julius Philip Benjamin von Rohr (1735-1793). Rohr was a Prussian in Danish service, and he started out as a surveyor. He was sent to the Danish West Indies - now the US Virgin Islands - as an engineer of sorts, but soon also became a formidable plant collector and naturalist, sending his finds back to anyone who'd have them in Europe (especially in England and in Denmark). Moreover, he was also interested in the economic aspects of (colonial) plantation agriculture especially in view of the recent end of Danish slave trading across the Atlantic. 1793 saw him on his way to Danish slaving forts on the West Coast of Africa in order to help transform them into a plantation economy. He died soon after his arrival. But he'd already sent Fabricius his exemplar of what that great entomologist called a bit drearily 'Papilio julia' (1775). Fabricius notes down Rohr's name diligently next to his description with the remark: 'Habitat in America' (the Butterfly, that is). Happily around 1805 Jakob Hübner (1761-1826) devised the name 'Dryas', as I wrote in my earlier posting.