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Old 03-08-2013, 04:24 PM
Rachel 101 Rachel 101 is offline
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First recorded activity by GardenBanter: Apr 2011
Location: South Oxfordshire
Posts: 30
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kay View Post
If you could post a link to a photo of the caterpillars, you could bring in other people's opinions. For example, I'm no moth expert, but I do have a copy of the excellent Collins Field Guide to Caterpillars of Britain and Northern Europe, which groups caterpillars by foodplant. It doesn't list crocosmia as a foodplant, but we migt be able to id the caterpillar and its normal foodplant, and hence suss out why it's moved to your crocosmias.
Hi Kay,

Darn, that's an excellent suggestion, but the only photo I managed to get was really fuzzy (cameraphone) so wouldn't be much help - the caterpillars were smooth, homogenous light grey in colour, a little over an inch long, not particularly plump (ie normal caterpillar proportions) and did look rather like the ones in the blog of the link that you supplied.

Since I cleared up the plants *pick! squish! pick! squish!* they haven't returned, and the remaining buds have opened into flower.

Victoria, I do hope that yours don't suffer the same fate!