Great British Lepidoptera

Wood White

(Leptidea Sinapis)

This tiny, delicate butterfly lives mainly along shady rides and in clearings in woods where profusely growing wild flowers provide nectar for food and suitable places for egg-laying. Wood Whites are also found in sheltered meadows in Sussex and in scrub and grassland at the base of cliffs along the south Devon coast. More than 20 species of wild flowers have been identified as sources of nectar, but the butterflies are attracted most strongly to bird's-foot-trefoil, bugle and ragged robin. Most of their eggs are laid on tall plants which stand up above the other flowers.

Wood Whites have become extinct in the north of England because of the loss of their habitats. But they have prospered in parts of the south where many populations now live along rides in Forestry Commision plantations. They have also exploited disused railway lines. Because of their slow flight they are poor colonises and rarely spread beyond limited localities.

Males hatch before females and have been seen drinking, as single-sex groups, from woodland puddles to obtain vital salts.

The butterflies fly in May and June, and there may be a second brood in July and August in southern areas.