A new food-plant for the Scarlet Tiger?

 Doing some tidying-up in the garden this afternoon, I spotted this caterpillar munching away at the leaf-edge of Trachystemon orientale (`Abraham, Isaac and Jacob`), a rampant perennial member of the borage family which spreads `like the clappers` in damp soil. The plant`s native range encompasses E. Bulgaria, N. Turkey and the western Caucasus. It is naturalised en masse under trees near my garden and sometimes manages to spread via rhizomes into the garden itself, as this plant has done. Fortunately the rhizomes are shallowly rooted and can very easily be uprooted. In my view it is not in the top class of `naughty boy plants` and it has the redeeming attribute of being a marvellous source of sustenance for early bees and other insects, often starting to flower in late January.

Above: top - the caterpillar on the leaf, showing frass (the black dots) and, below, a close-up of the same caterpillar. When first spotted, it was eating the edge of the leaf (see left-hand side of leaf, top photo). It was moved to the centre in order to take a photo.

                                            Above: Trachystemon in flower, late February.