Paperbark

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

Exposed nectar in a stamen brush, accessible to everything, and worked by honey bees, native stingless bees and honeyeaters at once.

Worth knowing

A reliable coastal and wetland flow across eastern Australia, and valuable partly because it occupies ground the drier eucalypts do not.

Flowering

In flower

October to February (southern hemisphere)

Spring and summer for most species, with several flowering more than once in a good year.

When nectar flows

Copious. The brush inflorescence holds a great deal of accessible nectar and the trees flower profusely.

What it does to the honey

Gives a mid amber honey with a medicinal eucalypt-like aroma from the cineole in the foliage and a slightly camphorous finish.

Growing it

Conditions

Full sun on wet or seasonally flooded ground, and many species tolerate salt.

Size

5-20 m depending on species.

Native range

Australia, with species extending to New Guinea, Southeast Asia and New Caledonia, characteristically on swampy or seasonally wet ground.

Suits

Large gardens, Walls and fences

• Excellent for wet ground where most trees will not grow.
• Tea tree oil comes from Melaleuca alternifolia in this genus, while manuka and kanuka honey come from Leptospermum — different genus, same common name, endless confusion.

What it looks like

Trees and large shrubs with thick spongy layered bark peeling in papery sheets, narrow leaves, and profuse cream or pink bottlebrush flower spikes.