Spring azure
Celastrina ladon
Butterfly
Small early-season blue butterfly (Lycaenidae) among the first to appear in spring across much of North America. Unusually for a butterfly, the larvae feed on flower buds, blossoms, and developing fruits rather than leaves, drawing them to shrubs and small trees including dogwood (Cornus), viburnum (Viburnum), New Jersey tea and other Ceanothus, blueberry (Vaccinium), and meadowsweet (Spiraea). Later-stage caterpillars are tended by ants, which harvest a sugary secretion from a gland on the larva in exchange for protection from parasitoid wasps and flies.
Conservation
Widespread and common across its range; not formally imperiled. Note that "Celastrina ladon" is taxonomically unsettled — several former subspecies (lucia, neglecta, echo, and others) are now often treated as full species, so the name covers a complex of closely related azures rather than one tidy lineage.
Plants in the catalog
Larval host plants · 11
Nectar plants · 1
The spring azure flies in early spring as moss phlox blooms, and phlox is an early nectar source for the season's first small butterflies — a timing match rather than a host-specific citation for C. ladon.
Range
Broadly distributed across North America from Canada south through most of the United States, varying with the taxonomic treatment of the azure complex.