I like this piece for its form, yet it pains me because I know it is not whole. It is an example of the zartist not listening to the zart. I will tell you why.
The scrap in the lower left corner is from a Russian book on medicinal plants in Europe and the western area of Russia. Russian readers will recognize the roots of the words кровь (blood) and хлебать (to gulp) in the genus name (Кровохлёбка). A crude definition might be “blood gulper”, or “blood sucker-upper”, similar in connotation to the Latin Sanguisorba. As the name suggests, parts of this plant are used for their astringent action and, in particular, for arresting blood flow. A common name for this little plant, which sends forth its clusters of tiny red flowers from summer through fall, is Grand or Greater Burnet — perhaps it was “initially denoted ‘brunette’, a name derived from the dark hue of the plant’s flowers”.
So, with “tiny red flowers” and the blood staunching properties in mind, you would think I’d have paired this with red or maroon, right? I could say I was going for venous blood with the purple… but that’s really a stretch.
As it turns out, the S. officinalis is an important food plant for the larvae of two rather rare species of butterfly — Maculinea teleius and M. nausithous. Since this assemblage is already fixed, I wondered, optimistically, if these butterflies might possibly be purple. Well, you can google these little guys all day long, or you can travel to the Sierra de Guadarrama in northern Spain, or to northern Transylvania in northern Romania where biologists have noted two small populations of M. nausithous; you can squint all day long, but these butterflies are blue, blue, blue. The common name of M. nausithous is Dusky Large Blue; M. teleius is Large Blue. Remarkable, vibrant, scarce. But not purple.
Dusky Large Blue (M. nausithous)
Large Blue (M. teleius)
By the way, did you know that the Maculinea is una mariposa con guardería en un hormiguero? Indeed, the delicate relationship between a particular species of Maculinea and a particular species of Myrmica ant, as well as the parasitic nature of the M. teleius and M. nausithous, is thought to contribute to the scarcity of the butterfly. The relationship goes something like this: The adult Maculinea posits eggs in or on the flower heads of S. officinalis that just happen to be within the foraging range of Myrmica ants. The eggs hatch and the larvae eat seed for a while; after about a month, the seed heads fall and the ants harvest them, along with the tiny, ant larvae-sized butterfly larvae. If the S. officinalis isn’t within range of the Myrmica, the Maculinea will die. If the larvae are scooped up by the “wrong” species of Myrmica ant, they will die. The lucky Maculinea caterpillars (those that have been scooped up by the “right” Myrmica ants) then set about deceiving their hosts into feeding and nurturing them. They secrete an aroma similar to that of the ant’s larvae, and may also mimic a sound made by the Myrmica ant queen.
Myrmica tending to Maculinea larva
The Maculinea caterpillars spend months being fed and pampered (and the M. teleius, and M. nausithous catepillars help themselves to their hosts’ larvae), then pupate in one of the ant nest chambers for another month. Metamorphosis happens and an unapologetic, lovely blue butterfly emerges. Blue. Not purple. The ants aren’t purple either.
Really, I wasn’t listening to the zart at all. I liked the rich purple color and how the purple watercolor fanned out into the light ivory acrylic paint. If this were still a transitory assemblage, I would redo it in red, or blue, or choose a different scrap.
Now… where was I? Back to the parasitic butterflies…
References
http://www.rug.nl/fwn/onderzoek/programmas/biologie/cocon/mscprojects/projectdescriptions/022?lang=en
Action plan for Maculinea butterflies in Europe, Issues 18-97; By Miguel L. Munguira, Council of Europe <<this in part on Google books
http://www.zi.ku.dk/personal/drnash/atta/pages/mae.html
http://www.pfaf.org/user/Plant.aspx?LatinName=Sanguisorba+officinalis
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1635221/parasitic_butterfly_fools_ants_into_servitude/
http://academic.reed.edu/biology/courses/BIO342/2011_syllabus/2011_websites/RachelEllen/ontogeny.html
www.anl.bayern.de/publicationen/…/doc/info_teleius_be1.pdf <<Google “scarce large blue teleius”
http://www.eurobutterflies.com/species_pages/nausithous.htm
Rabasa, S., Gutierrez, D., and Escudero, A. (2005). Egg laying by a butterfly on a fragmented host plant: a multi-level approach. Ecography, 28:629-639.
Dinca, V., Zakharov, E., Hebert, P., and Vila, R. (2010). Complete DNA barcode reference library for a country’s butterfly fauna reveals high performance for temperate Europe. doi:10.1098/rspb.2010.1089
Elmes, G., Thomas, J., Wardlaw, J., Hochberg, M., Clarke, R., and Simcox, D. (1998). The ecology of Myrmica ants in relation to the conservation of Maculinea butterflies. Journal of Insect Conservation, 2, 67-78.
