NATIVE PEOPLE ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- { In bloom

Fluttering BackWRITTEN BY MADELINE BODIN

Native plant gardeners revive a butterfly thought extinct

AS SANDY KOI LED A GROUP OF CHILDRENthrough Esplanade Park in downtown Fort Lauderdale in 2001, she was

wrapped up in telling the story of the coontie (Zamia pumila); there are

several large coontie plants at the edge of the park's native plant garden.

She told them how it was the only cycad (a family of primitive, cone-

bearing tropical and subtropical plants) native to North America and

how the slow-growing plant was pushed to the brink of extinction by the

starch industry at the turn of the 20th century.

In the back of her mind was the rarebutterfly whose caterpillar is entirelydependent on the leaves of the coontie forits food. The atala butterfly (Eumaeusatala) had been thought to be extinct inthe middle of the 20th century. Its fortunefaded when the coontie's did. However,the butterfly had been rediscovered in theFlorida Keys in 1979, and there had beensome restoration efforts. Atalas areuncommon, though, and Koi had neverseen one. She took a closer look. -

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"And there they were, flitting aroundin the dappled light like the winged jew-els that they are," says Koi.

Atalas have velvety black wingsfrosted with iridescent blue and green,with orange-red spots on their wingsand bodies. Their wings are the size ofa quarter.

"I was entranced," Koi says.Since that day, Koi has made atalas

her life's work. She has organized two re-introduction efforts and is now a doctor-al student studying atalas at theUniversity of Florida. Scientists nowknow that this species' population natu-rally explodes and dwindles. Atalas can-not, however, survive without coonties,and since the wild coontie population allbut died out just as development explod-ed in South Florida, atala restoration hasrelied on native plant gardens.

South Florida has several programsthat encourage homeowners to gardenwith native plants, including theFairchild Tropical Botanic Garden's

Connect to Protect and BrowardCounty's NatureScape.

Not all gardeners are pleased to seeatalas, though, no matter how imperiledor colorful they are. When their popula-tions boom,the caterpillars can chewboth native and expensive importedcycads to shreds.

Part of Koi's work is organizing res-cues. She places unwanted atala caterpil-lars with native plant gardeners who wel-come them. When the atala populationplummets, she typically has a waiting listof disappointed atala fans.

Karen Malkoff is one of the nativeplant gardeners who have fostered a relo-cated atala colony, Malkoff's yard hasdozens of the shrubby, fern-leaved coon-tie plants tucked under palms and citrustrees, but the payoff was not immediate."I had coonties for years before I saw myfirst atala," Malkoff says.

After meeting Koi at a butterfly eventat the Fairchild, Malkoff was not sur-prised to get a call and later find Koi onher doorstep with a small plastic contain-er filled with coontie leaves and homelessatala caterpillars.

Koi'smost recent project is researchingbasic information about the atala: Howlong do its eggs take to hatch? How manydays does it spend as a butterfly? Previousrecords were inconsistent. Getting it rightmeans that Koi's days are spent in the lab,counting and watching, and not outsidesharing her love for nature with others.

That hasn't dampened her enthusi-asm, though. She says, "Twelve yearslater, I am still entranced with the butter-fly and the plant." ~

WILDFLOWER· SUMMER 2013 29