The Willow Beauty (Peribatodes rhomboidaria) is a moth of the family Geometridae. It is a common species of Europe and adjacent regions (Near East and the Maghreb). While it is found widely throughout Scandinavian countries, which have a maritime climate, it is absent from parts of the former USSR which are at the same latitude but have a more continental climate.
Up to four subspecies are listed by some authors, while others consider the Willow Beauty a monotypic species or accept only rhomboidaria and sublutearia as distinct:
- Peribatodes rhomboidaria corsicaria
- Peribatodes rhomboidaria defloraria
- Peribatodes rhomboidaria rhomboidaria
- Peribatodes rhomboidaria sublutearia
Under its junior synonym Geometra rhomboidaria, the Willow Beauty is the type species of its genus Peribatodes. This was initially proposed as a subgenus of Boarmia but eventually elevated to full genus rank.
Read more about Willow Beauty: Description and Ecology, Synonyms
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A quest of river-grapes, a mocking thrush,
A wild-rose, or rock-loving columbine,
Salve my worst wounds.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“All forms of beauty, like all possible phenomena, contain an element of the eternal and an element of the transitory—of the absolute and of the particular. Absolute and eternal beauty does not exist, or rather it is only an abstraction creamed from the general surface of different beauties. The particular element in each manifestation comes from the emotions: and just as we have our own particular emotions, so we have our own beauty.”
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)