HUAJILLA 
521 
sas. The pink flowers have a tube 18 mm. 
long and are adapted to female bumble¬ 
bees, but butterflies and humming birds 
also are common visitors. The tube at 
times fills Avith nectar for more than half 
of its length, and, as its mouth flares suf¬ 
ficiently to admit the head of the honey¬ 
bee for 5mm., worker bees in large num¬ 
bers have been seen gathering the nectar. 
Wild bergamot (M. fistulosa ) is another 
bumblebee 'flower. It is found abundantly 
by the roadside and on dry hills from 
Maine and Minnesota to Florida and Lou¬ 
isiana. The corolla-tube is 18 mm. long, 
or a little less than three-quarters of an 
inch. The pink flowers attract many but¬ 
terflies. Wasps bite holes in the base of 
the tubes in order' to obtain the nectar, and 
honeybees very often make use of these 
perforations to gain a part of the SAveet 
spoil. Bee balm or Oswego tea (M. didy- 
ma), Avith scarlet floAvers and very long 
corolla-tubes, seems to be adapted to hum¬ 
ming birds. The horsemints belong to the 
mint family or Labiatae. 
HOUSE-APIARY.— See Apiary. 
HUAJILLA (Acacia Berlandieri ).—The 
Rio Grande Plain includes that portion of 
southeastern Texas lying between the Gulf 
of Mexico and the San Antonio River on 
the east and the Rio Grande on the south 
and west. Its northern boundary is the es¬ 
carpment north of San Antonio. It is a 
semiarid country Avith many days of in- 
ense sunshine and an average annual rain¬ 
fall, which ranges from 16 to 26 inches ac¬ 
cording to the locality. The soil is sandy, 
gravelly or rocky, and the surface is part¬ 
ly level and partly broken by ridges and 
hills. The dry uplands are about one-half 
covered Avith a scrubby, thorny growth, 2 
to 12 feet tall, often forming impenetrable 
thickets. Mesquite, white brush, prickly 
pear, Texas ebony, catsclaw, retama, and 
huajilla are abundant and yield a large 
surplus of honey. There are nearly 80 
species of small trees and shrubs in the 
Rio Grande Plain, not one of which ap¬ 
pears in the Atlantic forests of east Texas. 
The three main honey plants are mesquite, 
catsclaw, and huajilla, but huajilla is the 
most important of the three. Huajilla oc¬ 
cupies the rocky ridges and hills in the 
northern part of this section extending 
Huajilla. 
from the Nueces River to the Rio Grande. 
It is not found in Cameron County in the 
extreme south, but is common in Uvalde 
and other northern counties. It is a nearly 
unarmed shrub with pinnate leaves, and 
small yelloAv flowers in globular clusters. 
It blooms in April and yields nectar for 
about 15 days in such abundance that it is 
impossible for the bees to gather it in 
favorable seasons. The honey is white or 
a very light amber, and is probably the 
lightest-colored honey produced in the 
State. It has a very mild flavor and is 
famous for its excellent quality and pleas¬ 
ing aroma. It granulates early with a 
coarser grain than catsclaw honey. The 
flow is not reliable every year. Huajilla 
honey unmixed in commercial quantities is 
difficult to get, as this species and catsclaw 
usually bloom at the same time. 
HUBER, FRANCOIS. —More perhaps 
than any other branch of agriculture, bee¬ 
keeping has a generous list of great and 
beloved names folded down in its chronicles. 
