Cowslip

Value to bees

Nectar

Moderate

Pollen

Moderate

As a honey crop

Not a honey source

Which bees, and why

Long-tongued bumblebee queens are the main bee visitors, along with bee-flies and the occasional early butterfly. The deep narrow tube excludes most short-tongued bees entirely.

A long narrow corolla tube that filters strongly by tongue length.

Worth knowing

Moderate ratings from a plant whose real value is as an indicator — cowslips mark grassland that has not been fertilised or reseeded, and such grassland supports a great deal else.

Flowering

In flower

April to May (northern hemisphere)

Four to six weeks in mid spring, on unimproved and lightly managed grassland.

When nectar flows

Nectar sits deep in a narrow tube, so it is reached mainly by long-tongued bumblebees and by bee-flies and butterflies.

Year-to-year variation

Reliable where the grassland suits it. Not a honey crop.

Growing it

Conditions

Full sun to light shade, well-drained and preferably calcareous soil, and low fertility. Fertiliser kills it by letting grasses outcompete it.

Size

15-30 cm.

Native range

Europe and western Asia, on calcareous grassland.

Suits

Meadow or wildflower area, Small gardens, Large gardens, Orchard

• Do not feed the ground. Cowslips need low fertility, and improving the soil is the reliable way to lose them.
• Excellent in a meadow or an orchard sward left uncut until midsummer.
• Its recovery along British motorway verges is one of the clearest conservation successes of roadside management, and a good argument for how verges are cut.

What it looks like

A rosette of crinkled leaves with an upright stalk carrying a one-sided nodding cluster of small deep yellow tubular flowers with orange spots inside.