What is "pieris"

Pieris ( or ) is a genus of seven species of shrubs in the family Ericaceae, native to mountain regions of eastern and southern Asia, eastern North America and Cuba. Known commonly in North America as andromedas or fetterbushes, they are broad-leaved evergreen shrubs growing to tall and wide. The leaves are spirally arranged, often appearing to be in whorls at the end of each shoot with bare stretches of shoot below; they are lanceolate-ovate, long and broad, leathery textured, and with an entire or serrated margin. The young leaves in spring are typically brightly coloured. The flowers are bell-shaped, long, white or pink, and arranged in racemes long. The fruit is a woody capsule which splits into five sections to release the numerous small seeds.

Pieris species are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species including The Engrailed.

The genus name derives from Pieria, a place in Greece, according to Greek mythology the home of the Muses.

Pieris can refer to:

Pieris, the whites or garden whites, is a widespread now almost cosmopolitan genus of butterflies of the family Pieridae.The highest species diversity is in the Palearctic. Many species of this genus have caterpillars which feed on cabbage and other members of the Brassicaceae. The chemical basis of this association with a certain plant group has been studied for over 100 years, and is now known to occur via a number of biochemical adaptations to chemicals called glucosinolates in these plants. In contrast to most other insects, Pieris caterpillars are able to detoxify these chemicals, and have become so specialised that they will not eat any food without glucosinolates. The Pieris females, in turn, check for the presence of glucosinolates before laying eggs on a plant. The crop-damaging species have spread from Eurasia to most of the rest of the world (most recently to South America and Africa) and are considered pest insects almost everywhere.

The females of many Pieris butterflies are UV reflecting, while the male wings are strongly UV absorbing due to pigments in the scales.