260 AMERICAN HONEY PLANTS 



known as white ti-ti, ironwood and red ti-ti. It sometimes reaches the 

 height of 20 to 30 feet, becoming a small tree, though usually it is found as 

 a shrub. The thin bark breaks up into large scales. 



The bloom opens in June and July and is not regarded as a very de- 

 pendable source of nectar. The honey is dark, with a mild flavor. 



The ti-ti (Cliftonia monophylla), sometimes called buckwheat-tree or 

 ironwood, also known as black ti-ti, occurs in wet, sandy soil and swamps 

 from South Carolina to Florida and west to Louisiana. It is an attractive 

 tree, often reaching a height of 30 to 40 feet. This shrub or tree, as the 

 case may be, often grows in dense thickets called ti-ti swamps. The flow- 

 ers are white and fragrant and appear in late February to April. There are 

 large areas of ti-ti swamp in Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi, which 

 furnish abundant bee pasture. According to Baldwin, it yields surplus 

 honey in the extreme northwest portion of west Florida. He describes the 

 honey as red, strong, and suitable mostly for baking purposes. (Gleanings, 

 March 15, 1911.) 



Ti-ti is of more or less value as a source of nectar in the swampy dis- 

 tricts of all the Southeastern States from South Carolina to Louisiana. 

 The honey is not of the best quality, nor is the yield generally heavy. 



TOBACCO (Nicotiana tabacum). 



The tobacco plant is a coarse annual. It is grown as a field crop in 

 the South and also in a few northern localities, especially in Wisconsin 

 and Connecticut. As a honey plant it is probably seldom important. The 

 fact that the plants are usually cut in advance of the time when the bloom 

 is at its best, would make it unavailable, for the most part, as a source of 

 nectar. 



"We are in a location where hundreds of acres of tobacco are 

 raised every year. I have taken bees and placed them near the fields 

 and they will store some honey from the plant some years. It is very 

 dark, much like buckwheat in color, strong and very heavy body. Buck- 

 wheat is not my favorite honey, but I can eat it. Tobacco honey I 

 cannot. It is very slow to granulate, and I have never seen it harden 

 as other honey will, even when well ripened and two years old." — W. 

 K. Rockwell, Bloomfield, Conn. American Bee Journal, page 63, 1919. 



"Tobacco yields a heavy flow under certain conditions in Porto 

 Rico." — Henry Brenner, in American Bee Journal, page 381. 1916. 



"Tobacco in this section has always been raised in the open field 

 and, when about 4 feet high, each plant has been 'topped' and not al- 

 lowed to go to seed. * * * It is now being picked in the field in- 

 stead of being cut by the old method. The plant is allowed to grow 

 from 7 to 10 feet high and goes to seed. The leaves are saved by 

 picking, this work commencing at the bottom, one row of leaves being 

 gathered at a time, and the top leaves picked last. The plants are thus 

 allowed to blossom, each one bearing hundreds of flowers, and they 

 continue to bloom from August 1 till frost. Thus we have thrown open 

 to our bees hundreds of acres of tobacco, containing myriads of flow- 

 ers.. The bees swarm on it, some days more than others, and the honey 

 comes in as fast as during the earlier flows." — E. H. Shattuck, Granby, 

 Conn. Gleanings, page 268. 1911. 



TOLLON BERRY, see Christmas Berry, 



