358 Sune Honey Plants. 
family (Fig. 160), are thronged with bees during the sea- 
son of bloom. The first and last are of commercial import- 
ance, while very few of our native plants afford so much 
nectar, are such favorites with the bees, and are So inde- 
pendent of weather as motherwort (Fig 161). Itis crowded 
with bees from the dawn of its bloom till the last flower 
withers, By cutting it back in May it can be made to 
Fic. 163. 
Fic. 162. 
Pollen of Milk-Weed on Bee's Foot, Black Mustard, 
blossom just at the dearth of nectar-secreting bloom; other- 
wise it comes in June and early July, just when Linden is 
yielding its precious harvest. Few plants are more desir- 
able to sow in waste places. 
The silk or milk-weed furnishes abundant nectar from 
June to frost, as there are several species of the genus 
Asclepias, which is wide-spread in our country. Indeed 
pleurisy root or butterfly weed, Asclepias tuberosa, is the 
bee-plant that Mr. Heddon has praised so highly. He 
thinks it one of our best indigenous honey-plants. These are 
the plants which have large pollen masses which often ad- 
here to the legs of the bees (Fig 162), and sometimes 
