Monarch Cap
Monarch Cap
Size & fit
One size fits most: about 22⅞ in around, with an adjustable fabric strap and metal slider. Unstructured six-panel, low-to-mid profile, curved bill (about 2¾ in).
Adults, caterpillar and chrysalis on milkweed, the plant it cannot live without.
The cap
- The plate's chest mark, printed on the front as drawn, with LINNAEUS beneath. Printed rather than embroidered, so nothing is redrawn.
- Comfort Colors Sunwashed Cap: 100% cotton twill, brushed and washed for a broken-in feel.
- Spot clean; don't put it in the dryer.
Shipping & production
Each one is made for you after you order, usually within 2–5 business days. Shipping is shown at checkout before you pay; items from different makers may arrive in separate boxes.
Returns
If your cap arrives damaged, misprinted or defective, contact us within 30 days of delivery with a photo and we'll send a replacement or a refund. Because every cap is made to order, we can't accept returns for a change of mind.
Plate 029
From the book
- Species
- Danaus plexippus
- As named in the book
- Papilio Archippus.
- Artist
- John Abbot
- Book
- The Natural History of the Rarer Lepidopterous Insects of Georgia, 1797
Then and now
Its eastern population migrates up to 3,000 miles to winter in the mountains of central Mexico.
Field notes
One generation a year flies thousands of miles to a forest none of them has seen.
Abbot painted the monarch with its whole life on the page: two adults, the banded caterpillar, the jade chrysalis with its row of gold dots, all on a stem of milkweed. The milkweed is the key. Caterpillars eat nothing else, and they store the plant's bitter heart-poisons, cardenolides, in their own bodies. The adult's orange and black is a warning label.
Most monarchs live a few weeks. But the generation born at the end of summer is different: shortening days hold off their breeding and stretch their lives to eight or nine months. That "super generation" flies from the eastern US and Canada to a few mountain forests of oyamel fir in central Mexico, places none of them has seen, and winters there in clusters that bend the branches.
In spring they start back north, and their great-grandchildren finish the journey.