Click the name to see a picture of the butterfly.

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LARGE WHITE (Pieris brassicae) : Black triangle in the corner of the forewing, extending at least as far down the outer edge as along the top. Upperside of wings clear white, with or without black spots (female has more spots than male). Underside of hindwing clear yellow. Quite large and robust.

SMALL WHITE (Artogeia rapae) : Black triangle also, but extending less far down the outer edge than along the top. Upperside of wings clear white, again, with or without black spots. Underside of hindwing clear yellow, often with some smooth greenish shading. Smaller than large white, but also robust.

GREEN-VEINED WHITE (Artogeia napi) : Like small white, but with black corner mark extending a little further down the outer edge and normally slightly broken up into triangles along the veins, especially at the bottom. But the most characteristic thing about the green-veined white is the underside of the hindwing, which has dark (greenish) scaling along the veins. This is most clear in spring, but is true all year. High in the mountains even the upperside can be dark-veined, but here the venation looks grey or blackish, because it is not on a yellow background. This is now thought to be a different species, the DARK-VEINED WHITE or MOUNTAIN GREEN-VEINED WHITE

WOOD WHITE (Leptidea sinapis) : Black or grey square in corner of forewing. The underside of this butterfly is white, without the yellow of the first three species, though it may have grey scaling. Most characteristically, the butterfly is not at all robust. It is smaller, with a very slender body and a feeble flight. Sometimes it looks as if it can hardly hold up its own weight and often 'dangles' when it rests. In England it is a rarity but we are lucky here that it is very common in the fields and meadows (and near woods) around Villars.

ORANGE TIP (Anthocharis cardamines) : The male of this butterfly is unmistakable, having a bright orange patch covering half the forewing. The female looks more like a normal white, but the corner mark is neither triangular nor square, and has black and white chequering outside it, in the corner of the wing. The underside of the hindwing of both sexes is mottled green (actually black on yellow) and white.

BATH WHITE (Pontia daplidice) : This is the least likely white you might see. The corner of the forewing is chequered white and black and there is always a large black spot near the leading edge of the forewing. The underside has a very characteristic pattern of white and green - look at the picture.

If you still cannot identify a white you have seen, check out the YELLOWS and the CLOUDED APOLLO.