AMERICAN HONEY PLANTS 167 



any locality where it is sufficiently abundant, mustard can be expected to 



add something to the product of the apiary. 



The late J. S. Harbison wrote, in his "Beekeepers' Directory,": 



"Mustard affords a larger amount of valuable pasturage to the acre 

 than almost any other plant. It blooms throughout the month of May, 

 and part of June. During this time, bees increase in numbers, and 

 store from it large quantities of honey of a clear yellowish color, but 

 partaking slightly of the taste of the plant." 



N 



NAPA THISTLE, see Star Thistle; also Centaurea. 



NEBRASKA, Honey Sources of. 



Most of Nebraska's surplus honey is secured from clover, though 

 alfalfa is important in the western part of the State, especially under irri- 

 gation. White clover, alsike and sweet clover are all important honey 

 plants in Nebraska. Cottonwood furnishes an important source of pollen 

 in spring. Willows and maples furnish both nectar and pollen, while fruit 

 bloom and dandelions are usually sufficient to enable the bees t :> build 

 up for the clover flow. There is a great variety of minor sources which 

 are not sufficiently abundant lo yield much surplus. Among these may be 

 mentioned, milkweeds, catalpa, Rocky Mountain bee plant, buffalo bur, 

 vervain, Spanish needles, etc. 



Heartsease yields abundant surplus some years and basswood was 

 formerly important in some places in eastern Nebraska. 



NECTAR AND NECTAR SECRETION. 



The great Swedish botanist, Linnaeus, nearly two hundred years ago, 

 basing his classification of plants on their flowers, found it necessary to 

 name and account for all of the parts of a flower. In many cases he found 

 structures that were neither sepals, petals, stamens nor pistils, and as 

 these contained, or were wet with, a sweet fluid, he gave this the fanciful 

 name "nectar" — the drink of the gods, and called the parts of the flower 

 that produced or contained it, "nectaries." 



As these nectaries were different from stamens and pistils, which Lin- 

 naeus recognized as the sexual organs of flowers, though they are some- 

 times connected with them, and as they were different from ordinary 

 sepals and petals, though sometimes connected with them, they presented 

 something of a question to the men of that day, who were curious to 

 know what the parts of a plant really are and what they do. For this 

 reason the study of nectaries became something of a popular diversion 

 for a generation or two; and a general idea that they are organs for se- 

 creting sugar became established; not necessarily an idea of secretion. 



