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By: Sophie Kevany
May 10, 2024
A mass planting of marsh violets across England’s Shropshire Hills is to take place to try to prevent further decline of the small pearl-bordered fritillary or Boloria selene, a rare UK butterfly.
The small pearl-bordered fritillary’s distribution across the UK has plunged 71% since the mid 1970s and the species is now listed as vulnerable, according to the 2022 state of UK butterflies report.
It is hoped the planting will help increase habitats for the butterfly and other increasingly uncommon species including snipe, curlew and devil’s bit scabious flowers, the National Trust said.
Thought to have been plentiful until the 1950s, small pearl-bordered fritillary populations are believed to have been decimated by a combination of factors including global heating, which pushed colonies north and west in search of cooler climes, wetland drainage, which shrank habitats, and changing management techniques that allowed rushes to push out marsh violets, said Charlie Bell, a project manager at the National Trust.
Small pearl-bordered fritillary caterpillars are lovers of marsh violet leaves, Bell said. The adults lay eggs on the plant’s leaves. “The caterpillars hatch out into a ready-made buffet, they don’t really need the flowers.” The butterflies ignore the flowers too, feeding instead on nectar from other plants such as brambles, marsh thistles and ragged robin flowers, she said.
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