Black hairstreak forewings. The most conclusive way to distinguish the two is by the row of black spots accompanying the orange band which the white-letter hairstreak never has. They spend most of their lives in the canopy or in dense scrub, feeding on honeydew, and very rarely come down to ground level. Eggs are laid singly on young blackthorn "Prunus spinosa" growth and it is this stage which hibernates. Although blackthorn is the main foodplant, wild plum "Prunus domestica" and other "Prunus" spp are occasionally used. The caterpillar hatches the following spring, at the end of April, just before the buds open
Prunus tangutica fruit are green when unripe and purplishred when ripe. The fruits' mesocarps (fleshy exterior) splits when ripe, which led to it being classified as an almond for over a century, with the exception of Kovalev & Kostina in 1935, who assigned it to "Persica". Prunus tangutica Prunus tangutica () is a species of wild peach native to China. Based on its fruit traits it had been considered a wild almond, but genetic and morphological studies have shown that it is more closely related to "Prunus persica", the cultivated peach, with its closest relative being "Prunus mongolica". It is a very