150 
THE DICTIONARY OF GARDENING, 
HOMOGYNE (from homos, the same, similar, and 
_gyne, female; so called from the similarity of the female 
flowers to the others). ORD. Compostie. A small genus, 
comprising but three species of stemless, hardy herbs, 
natives of the mountains of Europe. Flower-heads white 
or purple; scapes one or two-headed, furnished with one 
or two distant leaves. Leaves radical, broad, cordate, 
angular or sinuato-dentate. The species thrive in any 
tolerably damp garden border, ; 
H. ina (alpine). A. hedds light purple, discoid; scape one- 
— cae Pae g Marchi bo — l. reniform, toothed, 
smooth, A. 6in. Austria, 1710. (B. M. 84, under name of Fussi- 
lago alpina.) : 
H. discolor (two-coloured). l.-heads inodorous; scape solitary, 
terete, purple, clothed with whitish wool. June and July. J. 
p radical, sub-rotund, cordate at base, acutely crenulated, thick, 
firm ; upper surface green, shining-glabrous, boldly nerved ; under 
-surface densely and shortly tomentose. A. 6in. Austria 
Italy, 1633. (J. F. A. iii. 247, under name of Tussilago discolor.) 
HOMOIANTHUS. Now included under Perezia 
(which see). 
HONCEKENYA (named after G. A. Honckeny, 1724- 
1805, author of a Flora of Germany). Syn. Clappertonia. 
ORD. Tiliacew. A monotypic genus. ‘The species is a 
stellato-pubescent stove shrub, from tropical Africa. It 
thrives in a mixture of loam and peat. Propagated by 
young cuttings, inserted in sand, under a hand glass, in 
heat. 
H. ficifolia (lig-leaved), bluish-viol large, terminal, in 
threes. 1. —— or A ata — 
HONESTY. ‘cc Lunaria biennis. 
HONEY BEE (Apis mellifica). This is not the suit- 
able occasion to give a full account of the structure 
and habits of the Honey Bee, or Hive Bee, and of its 
allies; but these insects are of such great value to hor- 
ticulturists, because of the part’ they perform in the con- 
veyance of pollen from flower to flower, and thereby 
securing the production of healthy seed, that they cannot 
be passed by in silence. Their habits, &c., will be again 
treated of under Wasps (which see), with which they 
- numerous group of insects, with a considerable general 
similarity of aspect. All have the habit of making cells 
for the protection of the eggs and larve. ‘The Solitary 
Bees form these cells either in galleries hollowed out by 
themselves, or in holes or nests, built by them of mud or 
Queen. 
Fig. 239. 
other materials. The Humble Bees and Honey Bees build 
— of wax secreted from their bodies. They collect 
the pollen and the honey or nectar from flowers, and feed 
their larve on a mixture of these substances: hence, 
they have to make constant visits to flowers. The honey 
is also stored up in wax cells as food for their own use 
in winter. Among the Solitary Bees, only males and 
females can be distinguished, and the latter do all the 
work of providing for the larva. The Honey Bees com- 
prise males or drones, perfect females or queens (usually 
one in each nest), and undeveloped females, called neuters 
or workers. The accompanying woodeuts (see Fig. 239), 
- which were engraved from drawings made by Mr. Frank 
Cheshire, for his large work on Bee-keeping, show the 
relative sizes and forms of the three. After the queen 
is impregnated, the drones are killed by the workers. 
HONEY BEES. 
agree in many of their social customs. The Bees form a - 
Honey Bee—continued. 
The queen’s share in providing for the welfare of the com- 
munity is restricted to laying eggs. On the workers falls 
all the work, viz., attending to. the young brood, collect- 
ing food, and such-like duties. If, by any accident, the 
queen is lost, the workers can cause a worker-larva to 
develop into a queen, by supplying it with special food 
and enlarging the cell in which it lives. Returning now 
to the relation of Bees to flowers, we find that they are 
specially suited to remove the honey from flowers in 
which it is situated at the bottom of a tube of more than 
qin. long. The proboscis of the worker is formed of five 
pieces, of which the central piece (tongue) bears hairs 
near the tip, and is used to lick up the honey with. 
Flowers with honey at the bottom of narrow tubes, are 
specially attractive to Honey Bees, as in such it is 
beyond the reach of most other insects, and affords, there- 
fore, a good supply to the Bees. To fit the workers 
for collecting the pollen, their hind legs have the middle 
joint (tibia) concave on one side, and furnished with rows 
of hairs, so placed as to retain the pollen, as in a shallow 
vessel. Certain flowers are of such a form that few other 
insects than Bees can reach the pollen or the nectar in 
them. Flowers adapted for fertilisation by Bees, e.g., 
Antirrhinum, have the stamens and stigmas so situated 
that, in visiting the flowers, the insects must become 
dusted with the pollen, and it is conveyed to the stigma 
of the next flower of the same kind visited by them. 
Hence, they generally effect cross-fertilisation, the value 
of which, in the production of well-developed and healthy 
seeds, has been proved by experiment in many kinds of 
plants. (See Darwin’s “ Cross and Self-Fertilisation in the 
Vegetable Kingdom.”) The Honey Bee seldom extracts 
the honey through holes bored in the flower tube, as the 
Humble Bee sometimes does, to the detriment of the 
flowers. On comparing the various kinds of Bees with 
the Honey Bee, the latter is found to be the most per- 
fectly adapted of all the species for the collection of 
honey and pollen, and for insuring cross-fertilisation 
of the flowers it frequents to obtain these. Honey Bees 
usually restrict their visits more or less to one or two 
species of plant each day. Works that give much in- 
formation on Bees are, among others: Huber’s “ New 
Observations on the Natural History of Bees,’ Kirby 
and Spence’s “Introduction to Entomology,” Bevan’s “ The 
Honey Bee,” Shuckard’s “ British Bees,” and» Cheshire’s 
“ Bee-keeping: its Science and Practice.” 
HONEY BERRY. See Melicocca bijuga. 
HONEYDEW. ‘The name given to a sweet sticky 
substance, abundant on the leaves of many plants in 
summer, especially when the weather is warm and dry. 
Tt gives the parts on which it lies the appearance of 
being wet or varnished. Though it may occur on 
almost any parts of plants, it is most abundant on the 
leaves, where it is almost always restricted to the 
upper surface, covering it uniformly, or in the form ‘of 
minute spots crowded on the spaces between the veins. 
It is more abundant on woody plants than on herbs. 
Various causes have been assigned for its production; 
the belief was at one time entertained that it fell from 
the air. Afterwards, it was observed that aphides and 
certain allied insects secreted a fluid similar in its 
qualities to Honeydew, and that this secretion became 
sprinkled over adjoining bodies; and it was suggested 
that these insects were the producers of the Honeydew. 
The fact that the substance covers the upper surface 
of the leaves, while the insects are almost always found 
on the lower surface, was accounted for by supposing 
that the secretion fell from the insects on to the 
leaves beneath. There is no doubt that this is one 
mode in which the Honeydew is produced; but it 
has frequently been observed that plants, both in 
the open air and in houses, have been much covered 
with the coating, when no insects could be found 
