Swamp mahogany

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

Large brush flowers holding a great deal of exposed nectar, worked by honey bees by day and by flying foxes and gliders at night. Coastal swamp forest loss has made the remaining stands disproportionately important.

Worth knowing

A keystone winter nectar source for the whole east coast fauna, and a substantial commercial honey flow alongside that.

Flowering

In flower

May to August (southern hemisphere)

Mid-winter flowering, which makes it a keystone resource on the Australian east coast.

When nectar flows

Very heavy. The flowers are large and produce copious nectar at a season when almost nothing else does.

What it does to the honey

Gives a dark amber honey with a strong malty body, a resinous edge and a lingering slightly bitter finish.

Growing it

Conditions

Wet, poorly drained coastal soil, and it tolerates brackish conditions.

Size

20-30 m.

Native range

Coastal eastern Australia from southern Queensland to southern New South Wales, on swampy and estuarine ground.

Suits

Large gardens, Farm scale

• One of the few large eucalypts that thrives in permanently wet ground.
• Coastal swamp forest is a much-reduced habitat, and planting for it is a genuine conservation contribution in eastern Australia.

What it looks like

A solid tree with thick reddish-brown spongy fibrous bark, broad glossy dark leaves and large clusters of substantial cream stamen-brush flowers.