Prickly box

Value to bees

Nectar

High

Pollen

High

As a honey crop

Major honey crop — yields a surplus in good years

Which bees, and why

The small open flowers are accessible to almost everything — bees, butterflies, beetles and flies — which makes bursaria one of the most important insect plants in its range. It is the sole larval host of the endangered Eltham copper butterfly.

Worth knowing

An excellent summer nectar and pollen source, and among the most heavily visited plants in southeastern Australia.

Flowering

In flower

December to February (southern hemisphere)

A summer flow, overlapping the Tasmanian leatherwood season.

When nectar flows

Generous. The flowers are small but produced in great quantity and are strongly scented.

Year-to-year variation

More dependable than leatherwood, which is why Tasmanian beekeepers value it as insurance.

What it does to the honey

Contributes a mild floral sweetness with a faint almond note, and it sets slowly to a dense fine grain.

Growing it

Conditions

Full sun on dry well-drained soil, and drought-tolerant once established.

Size

2-6 m tall, occasionally to 10 m.

Native range

Southeastern Australia and Tasmania, in dry woodland, scrub and roadside.

Suits

Hedgerow, Large gardens

• Spiny and dense; excellent as a stock-proof or wildlife hedge.
• Drought-tolerant and suited to dry Australian gardens.
• Its role as a butterfly host plant makes it worth retaining wherever it occurs.

What it looks like

A spiny shrub or small tree with small dark leaves and dense terminal sprays of small cream honey-scented flowers, followed by distinctive flat purse-shaped seed capsules.