Rosemary Beetle Chrysolina americana (Fr. chrysomèle du romarin) is a leaf beetle with a taste for rosemary, lavender, sage and thyme. The public plantings of lavender down rue de la République in Preuilly suffer an annual invasion, but I've never had any trouble with it. This year, for the first time I think, there are a couple of the beetles on my sprawling rosemary plant in the front courtyard.
They are very colourful and jewel-like, so I am not too bothered. The rosemary bush is quite large and I doubt it will suffer too much. I don't know why the specific name is americana -- it is native to southern Europe and north Africa.
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2 comments:
I get them every year on the rosemary and the lavender. Probably far too many to just ignore them!! Cheers, Diane
Well, Simon doesn't like either plant, so we probably don't care about ours.
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