Summer Azure in flight
Celastrina neglecta
Summer Azure · Brooklyn Botanic Garden · 19 August 2026
A Summer Azure in the air between leaves in the August border at the Botanic Garden, wings open, which is a view this butterfly almost never gives when it lands. It is one of the commonest small butterflies of the eastern woods and their edges, and one of the smallest in the garden, with a wingspan of about two and a half centimetres.
At rest it keeps the wings shut, showing only the chalky grey underside with its fine chain of dark dots along the margin. Here the wings are pale enough in the light to read as nearly white, with a hint of the blue above. Several broods a year carry it from spring into early autumn, which is what separates it from the near-identical Spring Azure.
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