A melliferous flower is a plant which produces substances that can be collected by insects and turned into honey. Many plants are melliferous, but only certain examples can be harvested by honey bees, because of their physiognomy (body size and shape, length of proboscis, etc.) Apiculture classifies a plant as melliferous if it can be harvested by domesticated honey bees.
The table below lists some of the known melliferous plants, and indicates the flowering period, as well as the resources harvested by bees (Nectar, pollen, propolis, and honeydew). It is worth noting that each plant does not produce the same quantity or quality of these resources, and even among species the production can vary due to region, plant health, climate, etc.
Famous quotes containing the word flower:
“Punishment is a fruit that unsuspected ripens within the flower of the pleasure which concealed it. Cause and effect, means and ends, seed and fruit, cannot be severed; for the effect already blooms in the cause, the end preexists in the means, the fruit in the seed.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)