280 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST 



SUNFLOWER INSECTS. 



BY T. D. A. COCKERELL, BOULDER, COLORADO. 



I am much indebted to Mr. R. L. Thompson for the following 

 information regarding sunflower insects observed at Salisbury, 

 Rhodesia: 



"As yet we have no record of any serious pest attacking 

 sunflowers in Southern Rhodesia, and the nearest approach to 

 injury that has come under my notice was a partial defoliation of 

 a few plants at the Experimental Station, Salisbury, by the larvae 

 of Plusia orichalcea. In this case the plants rapidly recovered, 

 and no injury to the flower heads was apparent. The only other 

 injury I have seen was the work of a species of finch, which stripped 

 the heads of some garden varieties of HeliantJms. I regret that it 

 is rather too late to collect insects which visit the flowers. Such 

 are very numerous, and, from memory, I should say that our wild 

 and domesticated races of Apis mellifica (var. caffra and var. 

 nnicolor adansoni) rank first, while other insects attracted in- 

 clude large numbers of Diptera, mainly Muscids or Syrphids, and 

 smaller numbers of Aculeate Hymenoptera, especially Scoliids and 

 Sphegids. Chloridea ohsoleta occurred in some numbers at the 

 flowers this season, but otherwise I should say that diurnal Lepi- 

 doptera are only casual visitors. Among the Syrphids the most 

 conspicuous visitor is an undetermined species rather similar in 

 appearance to the European Eristalis tenax, diwd of similar habits." 

 (April 6, 1915.) 



This account is interesting because, although from a region so 

 remote from the original home of HeliantJms, it describes a situation 

 singularly like that in other parts of the world where sunflowers 

 are grown. Here in Colorado finches attack the heads, so that we 

 have to bag them in order to save seed. Here at Boulder, Chloridea 

 (or Heliothis) ohsoleta Fabr. — the very moth observed in Rhodesia 

 — visits the flowers of annual Helianthus, as well as those of the 

 perennial H. coloradensis Ckll. In Rhodesia, as in America and 

 Europe, there is the same general absence of butterflies as sunflower 

 visitors. The particular Plusia feeding on sunflower in Rhodesia 

 does not occur with us, but J. R. Parker (Journ. Econ. Ent., 1915, 

 p. 288) records that Plusia (or Autographa) gamma calif ornica 

 Speyer feeds on sunflower 



September, 1915 



