Brightly-colored flowers and butterflies—-what a wonderful combination for a summer’s day. I spotted these beauties this past weekend at Meadowlark Botanical Gardens in Vienna, Virginia.
The first shot features a little skipper butterfly on a spectacular, orange-red coneflower. The other two shots highlight the beauty of an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio glaucus) in a patch of the more frequently observed purple coneflowers.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved
Mike Powell 
Your pictures just make me HAPPY!!!!!!!! Wonderful colors!
Sally Morris swmorris3@aol.com
Thanks, Sally. Your comment made my day. I love sharing photos of many of the beautiful and unusual things that I manage to find during my regular forays into nature.
All three are stunning, Michael — the glory of summer.
Thanks, Jet. We are moving into a period of really hot weather and I suspect that many of the colorful flowers will fade and weather, but they are certainly glorious right now.
Corn flowers look similar to echinacea.
I think they are exactly the same. As far as I know, “coneflower” is just one of the common names for echinacea.
I used to work at a vitamin and herb company, echinacea was one of the top sellers. Its roots stimulate the immune system.
Fascinating info, Robert, though I suspect I can’t get all of those benefits by simply plucking a flower and eating it.