The monarch butterfly or simply monarch is a milkweed butterfly in the family Nymphalidae. Other common names, depending on region, include milkweed, common tiger, wanderer, and black-veined brown. It is amongst the most familiar of North American butterflies and an iconic pollinator, although it is not an especially effective pollinator of milkweeds. Its wings feature an easily recognizable black, orange, and white pattern, with a wingspan of 8.9–10.2 cm (3.5–4.0 in). A Müllerian mimic, the viceroy butterfly, is similar in color and pattern, but is markedly smaller and has an extra black stripe across each hindwing.
The Asclepiadoideae are a subfamily of plants in the family Apocynaceae. Formerly, they were treated as a separate family under the name Asclepiadaceae, e.g. by APG II, and known as the milkweed family.
Asclepias is a genus of herbaceous, perennial, flowering plants known as milkweeds, named for their latex, a milky substance containing cardiac glycosides termed cardenolides, exuded where cells are damaged. Most species are toxic to humans and many other species, primarily due to the presence of cardenolides, although, as with many such plants, there are species that feed upon them and from them. Most notable are monarch butterflies, who use and require certain milkweeds as host plants for their larvae.
Araucarioxylon arizonicum is an extinct species of conifer that is the state fossil of Arizona. The species is known from massive tree trunks that weather out of the Chinle Formation in desert badlands of northern Arizona and adjacent New Mexico and Chemnitz petrified forest in Chemnitz, Germany, most notably in the 378.51 square kilometres Petrified Forest National Park. There, these trunks are locally so abundant that they have been used as building materials.
Cynanchum is a genus of about 300 species including some swallowworts, belonging to the family Apocynaceae. The taxon name comes from Greek kynos and anchein, hence the common name for several species is dog-strangling vine. Most species are non-succulent climbers or twiners. There is some evidence of toxicity.
Asclepias curassavica, commonly known as tropical milkweed, is a flowering plant species of the milkweed genus, Asclepias. It is native to the American tropics and has a pantropical distribution as an introduced species. Other common names include bloodflower or blood flower, cotton bush, hierba de la cucaracha, Mexican butterfly weed, redhead, scarlet milkweed, and wild ipecacuanha.
Trichostema is a genus of flowering plants in the family Lamiaceae, which are aromatic herbs or subshrubs. These plants are native to North America. Many plant of this genus which have whorls of small blue flowers are called by the common name bluecurls.
Cirsium arizonicum, the Arizona thistle, is a North American species of thistle in the family Asteraceae, native to the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico. It has been found in Arizona, southeastern California, New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado, Utah, Sonora, and northwestern Chihuahua.
Metastelma is a genus of plant in the family Apocynaceae first described in 1810.
Lycium californicum is a spreading shrub in the nightshade family known by the common names California boxthorn and California desert-thorn.
Funastrum utahense, synonym Cynanchum utahense, is a species of flowering plant in the genus Funastrum of the family Apocynaceae, known by the common names Utah swallow-wort and Utah vine milkweed. This relatively uncommon perennial vine is native to the Mojave Desert from California, Nevada, Utah and Arizona in the United States. This is a small vine with a highly branched, twining stem rarely exceeding a meter in length with which it physically supports itself on other shrubs and trees. It has small narrow leaves a few centimeters long. Its flowers are bright yellow to orange and grow in umbels. The fruit is a grooved follicle several centimeters long.
Euptoieta claudia, the variegated fritillary, is a North and South American butterfly in the family Nymphalidae. Even though the variegated fritillary has some very different characteristics from the Speyeria fritillaries, it is still closely related to them. Some of the differences are: variegated fritillaries have two or three broods per year vs. one per year in Speyeria; they are nomadic vs. sedentary; and they use a wide range of host plants vs. just violets. And because of their use of passionflowers as a host plant, variegated fritillaries also have taxonomic links to the heliconians. Their flight is low and swift, but even when resting or nectaring, this species is extremely difficult to approach, and, because of this, its genus name was taken from the Greek word euptoietos meaning "easily scared".
Asclepias viridiflora, is commonly known as green comet milkweed, green-flower milkweed, and green milkweed. It is a widely distributed species of milkweed (Asclepias), known from much of the eastern and central United States from Connecticut to Georgia to Arizona to Montana, as well as southern Canada. The Latin specific epithet viridiflora means green-flowered.
Trichostema arizonicum, the Arizona bluecurls, is a perennial plant in the mint family (Lamiaceae) native to the Southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico. It has striking curling flowers and can often be found along road sides. The genus name means "hair stems" in reference to the graceful stamens that curl around to dab pollen on the backs of insect pollinators.
Gonolobus arizonicus, common name Arizona milkvine, is a species of plant in the family Apocynaceae. It is endemic to Arizona, found in Pima, Santa Cruz, Pinal, and Graham Counties.
Pherotrichis is a plant genus in the family Apocynaceae, first described as a genus in 1838. It is native to Mexico and Arizona.
- Pherotrichis leptogeniaB.L.Rob. - Jalisco
- Pherotrichis mixtecanaBrandegee - Oaxaca
- Pherotrichis schaffneriA.Gray - San Luis Potosí, Cochise County in Arizona
Helenium arizonicum is a North American perennial plant in the Sunflower Family, commonly known as Arizona sneezeweed. It is native only to Arizona in the southwestern United States, having been found only in four counties in that state: Apache, Navajo, Gila, and Coconino.
Lacosoma arizonicum, the southwestern sack-bearer moth, is a species of moth in the family Mimallonidae and one of four species of sack-bearers occurring north of Mexico. Its type locality is the Chiricahua Mountains of Arizona. The species was first described by Harrison Gray Dyar Jr. in 1898 from a single male specimen and has Hodges number 7660.
Calyptridium is a genus of flowering plants belonging to the family Montiaceae.
