Poached egg plant
A low Californian annual with white-and-yellow flowers that look precisely like fried eggs, and one of the most heavily worked plants a vegetable garden can hold. It is the garden form of the meadowfoam grown commercially for oil, and it self-seeds so freely that one sowing generally does for good.
Value to bees
- Nectar
- Very high
- Pollen
- High
- As a honey crop
- Minor honey crop — a surplus only locally or occasionally
- Which bees, and why
- Completely open shallow flowers accessible to every bee including the smallest, and produced in such quantity that a patch hums audibly. Hoverflies work it just as heavily, which is why it is a classic companion plant for aphid control.
Fully open shallow saucers with exposed nectaries — accessible to essentially every insect.
- Worth knowing
- An outstanding nectar and pollen source, and among the most heavily visited plants for its size in a temperate garden.
Flowering
- In flower
- April to July (northern hemisphere)
A long spring to early summer season from an autumn sowing, or later from a spring one.
What it does to the honey
The commercially grown American meadowfoam produces a honey with a distinct marshmallow and toasted-vanilla character quite unlike anything else.
Growing it
- Conditions
- Sun or light shade on moist soil. It dislikes drought and does best where the ground stays damp into early summer.
- Size
- 15-20 cm tall, spreading into mats.
- Native range
- California and southern Oregon, on damp meadow and vernal pool margin.
- Suits
- Small gardens, Containers and window boxes, Large gardens, Meadow or wildflower area
- Sow in autumn for the earliest and largest plants, or in spring for a later flush.
- Self-seeds prolifically and will return every year from one sowing.
- A classic edging for a vegetable plot, where the hoverflies it attracts deal with aphids.
What it looks like
A low spreading annual with finely divided bright green leaves, smothered in shallow saucer-shaped flowers with white petal tips and a yellow centre.
Sources
- Assessment Report on Pollinators, Pollination and Food Production — Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) (2016) · Systematic review Link
- HoneyHQ editorial synthesis — HEKNO Ltd · HoneyHQ synthesis
How sources are selected and weighted is set out in the sources and evidence policy.
Guides covering this plant
- Plants that attract honey bees specificallyHoney bees have short tongues and work in large numbers, which means they want different plants from bumblebees. Half the flowers sold as bee-friendly are out of their reach entirely.
- Bee plants for a balconyBees will find a balcony several floors up, and containers can be genuinely productive. The constraints are watering, wind and depth, and the plants that handle all three are mostly Mediterranean herbs.
Tools for planning planting
- Flowering calendar
What should I plant so that something is always in flower for bees?
- Bee-friendly garden planner
What should I plant in the space I actually have?
- Plant recommendation tool
Which plant fills this specific gap?