Niaouli

Value to bees

Nectar

Very high

Pollen

High

As a honey crop

Major honey crop — yields a surplus in good years

Which bees, and why

The myrtle-family brush flower holds exposed nectar and enormous quantities of pollen, and is worked indiscriminately by honey bees, stingless bees, birds and flies.

Worth knowing

A heavy and reliable flow wherever it grows, which is a substantial part of why it is tolerated in places that would otherwise remove it.

Flowering

In flower

March to July (southern hemisphere)

Flowers more than once a year in warm climates, with the main flush in the cooler half.

When nectar flows

Copious. A brush of exposed stamens holding a great deal of accessible nectar, and it flowers profusely.

What it does to the honey

Gives a pale to mid amber honey with a strongly medicinal, eucalyptus-like aroma from the cineole running through the whole plant.

Growing it

Conditions

Wet or seasonally flooded ground in frost-free climates, and highly salt-tolerant.

Size

8-25 m.

Native range

Coastal eastern Australia, New Guinea and New Caledonia. Introduced to Madagascar and Florida, and naturalised aggressively in both.

• Do not plant it outside its native range. Its value as a honey tree does not offset what it does to a wetland.
• In Madagascar it is already a landscape fixture and the honey is a genuine rural income.

What it looks like

A tree with thick spongy white paper-like bark peeling in sheets, stiff five-veined leaves, and creamy bottlebrush flower spikes borne several times a year.