Sign of high summer

Alright, it's a common little butterfly, the Green-veined white in the picture above. But I'm celebrating the flower, the Buddleia or 'Butterfly bush' named after the largely mysterious Rev Adam Buddle. It is bursting into bloom all over Leeds and with it have come the grandees of the butterfly world, the gaudy relations of our modest moths.

Red Admirals seem to be the earliest, with a few Small Tortoiseshells about. I've yet to see a new generation Peacock, though we've had plenty of over-wintering oldies earlier in the year, so their children won't be long. Commas have also stayed with us faithfully since late Spring, and here's another one.

Rev Buddle would surely have been delighted with all this although he never saw a buddleia and died well before Linnaeus named the genus after him. It came from China, like this rhododendron which flowered for the first time, extending our 'rhodo season' from late April to early August. On that score, white rabbits!