At the end of each winter, I look forward to the springtime return of our many colorful wildflowers and insects. This year, it just so happened that both occurred on the same day. Just last week I was walking on the back of my property and spotted a beautiful cloudless sulfur butterfly fluttering around. I began to wonder what in the world it was eating since I hadn’t seen any flowers yet. Even the azaleas and the redbuds were still in the bud stage. As I followed it, I discovered that it was leading me to its food source, a bunch of bright yellow Carolina jessamine (Gelsemium sempervirens) flowers. In all honesty, most of them were still buds, too, but enough were open to feed a few small butterflies. Now a week later, these flowering vines have draped yellow carpets of flowers over fences, bushes, trees, and when there’s nothing to climb, along the ground. Fairly quickly, many of our other spring flowers are opening, too, and I’m seeing more butterflies, bees, wasps, ants, moths, and beetles. I think it’s safe to say that spring has made it to central Florida.