Five finger

Value to bees

Nectar

High

Pollen

High

As a honey crop

Minor honey crop — a surplus only locally or occasionally

Which bees, and why

Small open flowers with fully exposed nectaries on a large umbel-like head, accessible to everything — the same architecture that makes ivy so valuable in the northern hemisphere autumn.

Worth knowing

The principal winter forage across much of lowland New Zealand, and important to native birds as much as to bees.

Flowering

In flower

May to August (southern hemisphere)

Winter flowering, which is the whole basis of its importance.

When nectar flows

Moderate in volume and available when nothing else is, which is a trade every colony would take.

What it does to the honey

Gives a pale honey with a mild, faintly green and slightly waxy character, and it granulates quickly.

Growing it

Conditions

Sun or partial shade in mild frost-free conditions on moist soil.

Size

4-8 m.

Native range

Throughout New Zealand, in lowland and lower montane forest and regenerating scrub.

Suits

Small gardens, Large gardens, Hedgerow

• One of the easiest New Zealand natives to grow, and among the most useful for winter forage.
• Fast-growing and tolerant of coastal wind.

What it looks like

A small spreading evergreen with the palmate five-to-seven-part leaves that give it its name, and large branched heads of small greenish flowers in winter, followed by purple-black berries.