Pollinator
Little yellow
Pyrisitia lisa
A small bright-yellow butterfly of the South, bordered in black.
- Family
- Pieridae (whites and sulphurs)
- Wingspan
- 1 to 1.5 in (2.5 to 3.8 cm)
- Flight season
- Much of the year in the South; migrates north
- Range
- Eastern and southern United States
- Caterpillar food
- Partridge pea and sennas
- Conservation
- Secure and widespread
The little yellow is a small, clear-yellow butterfly of open fields and roadsides, common through the South and a frequent wanderer north.
It flies in many broods and often gathers at damp ground in numbers.
Caterpillars feed on partridge pea and sennas, so a native partridge pea will host it.
Plants for the little yellow
2 caterpillar host plants and 15 documented nectar plants. Pick a role, then narrow with the filters below.
16 plants
Nectar
1 of 2 Butterfly milkweed Asclepias tuberosa Nectar
1 of 3 Tall blue wild indigo Baptisia australis Nectar
1 of 3 Firewheel Gaillardia pulchella Host + Nectar
1 of 2 Partridge pea Chamaecrista fasciculata Nectar
1 of 2 Turkey tangle frogfruit Phyla nodiflora Nectar
1 of 2 Orange coneflower Rudbeckia fulgida Nectar
1 of 2 False indigo bush Amorpha fruticosa Nectar
1 of 2 Dutchman's breeches Dicentra cucullaria Nectar
1 of 2 Hoary vervain Verbena stricta Nectar
1 of 2 Flat-topped goldenrod Euthamia graminifolia Nectar
Narrowleaf mountainmint Pycnanthemum tenuifolium Nectar
1 of 2 Field goldenrod Solidago nemoralis Host
1 of 2 Sensitive pea Chamaecrista nictitans Nectar
1 of 2 Showy goldenrod species complex Solidago speciosa Nectar
Missouri goldenrod Solidago missouriensis Nectar
Lyre-leaf greeneyes Berlandiera lyrata
1 of 21 of 31 of 31 of 21 of 21 of 21 of 21 of 21 of 21 of 21 of 21 of 21 of 2No plants match those filters.
Sources
- Butterflies and Moths of North America ↗
- iNaturalist ↗
- Plant associations from GloBI flower-visit records and NPIN larval-host data. Butterfly photographs via iNaturalist (CC BY).