The Butterfly's Tale
Once upon a time, a stunningly beautiful butterfly emerged from its chrysalis. Soft powdery yellow dusted the pristine scales of her white, strikingly veined wings, her antennae were tipped with dazzling white, and her slender body curved sinuously, clad in soft grey and black.
Although her body clock told her it was spring, the place in which she emerged was cold, ice-cold and numbing. She sensed it was filled with spring flowers; the sight and smell of them was everywhere. But the poor butterfly stumbled and fell, and the place where she fell to was colder than any. Very soon she could barely crawl.. Heavy feet and hard objects hammered all around her, but she did not have the energy to escape..
The place, dear reader, was the Dundee Ice Arena. The time was the Dundee Spring Garden Show, Saturday 16 th April, just before lunch. At the Plants with Purpose stall, the ice underfoot was seeping up through the green carpet, through my heavy walking boots and two pairs of thick socks, but I wasn't complaining because business was brisk, and I'd just sold some plants to a friendly lady and enjoyed a chat about them. Minutes later, she was back - bearing a butterfly.
"Could you look after this? It was on the ground and I don't think it would last very long there!"
Brief visions of the "Plants With Purpose Wildlife Sanctuary and Rescue Centre" trooped across my brain, before I offered a cowslip to the inert butterfly, which obligingly crawled aboard and stayed there for the next couple of hours. It then started showing signs of restlessness and boredom, so I transferred it to a rosemary, which seemed to please it. A brief visit to a fuller's teasel, a wander through the blue-eyed marys, and it settled for the afternoon on the top of a label reading "Opposite leaved golden Saxifrage".
"Perhaps it climbed the label to read it," suggested a young visitor to the stall.
I meant to take it home at the end of the afternoon, but at five o'clock , it had camouflaged itself so successfully on something, probably a Milk Thistle, that I couldn't find it. Although I doubted that it had warmed up enough to use its wing muscles, I had to trust to its instincts for survival and go home. Next morning, as I was refilling the bench before the show opened, my husband Andrew said, " Margaret , there's a butterfly on your back!"
And off we went again. I made a notice saying "Beware of the Butterfly!" and throughout the two days, the butterfly caused great interest. Parents brought their children to see it, people told their friends to come and admire it, Cath from the Biodiversity Partnership confirmed my identification of it as a Green veined White, and many visitors thoroughly enjoyed the chance to see the intricate beauty of a newly emerged butterfly at close quarters. I'm sure it was a factor in a number of plant sales - after all, many Plants With Purpose customers are naturally into wildlife - and by lunch time on Sunday, I was rather attached to my little mascot.
The problem was that as the Ice Arena got more full, the temperature would rise and the butterfly would start to stretch its wings and make ready to fly. It was unlikely to get far in the arena, and it was as perishingly cold outside as in. It needed a sheltered and protected spot. Would it wait till we took it home to the polytunnel?
Luckily one of my customers came back when she'd "done the show", full of concern for the butterfly. She has a sheltered garden, so we transferred Butterfly to an empty coffee carton, popped a paper bag over it, and sadly said goodbye as our little friend was taken home.
Thanks in this saga go to three people - the person who rescued Butterfly from the icy floor, the lady who took her home, and the anonymous and probably oblivious party who may have brought her or her chrysalis into the Flower Show, perhaps as an addenda to one of the delightful works of floral art! Somewhere in a Dundee Garden , a Green-veined White now quietly contemplates a warmer world..
Postscript: Yawning into the living room the morning after the rescue, what did I nearly trip over? Another (?) Green-veined White relaxing on the carpet! Was there a clutch hatching in the Ice Arena, who chose to attach themselves and follow me home? Are there any more? I shall watch where I tread. New mascot currently residing in the porch among the succulents, for it is raining like stair-rods.again. |
