149. Cabbage White

This is probably the most common butterfly that we see during the summer at Leaning Oaks -in the meadow and in the vegetable garden. The caterpillars is small, green and a voracious feeder of members of the Brassicaceae family.

The first Cabbage White, Pieris rapae was collected in Quebec in 1860 very near a port of entry for immigrants arriving mainly from Ireland. These people would have been fleeing  the famine. Many would have been farmers that would be bringing their own food on the voyage and much of that would be cabbages and turnips; food that would store well. Another bit of evidence for this origin was that the adult males were bright yellow, the same as the form found that occurs most frequently in Ireland.

A paper came out in 1867 that summarized the extremely rapid spread of this pest after the initial find. Scudder mailed out 600 requests for reports of this species and received back 200, with locations and dates in hand, he pieced together the timing and route until that time.  The original paper is a great read (The Introduction and Spread of Pieris rapae in N. America 1860 -1886).  Trains and ships heading south and across to California for the gold rush carrying cole crops aided in this speedy spread. 

The first record in BC is Kaslo in 1899 and then Vancouver Island in 1900. The speculation of why there was a fourteen year delay between the first occurrence in BC and the completion of the railway is that there was a thriving farm industry already in BC, therefore there were few crops being shipped. Once it hit though it soon (1901) was described as a "troublesome pest".