Visitors 43
Modified 6-Sep-26
Created 6-Sep-26
81 photos
Specifically, our Hayfield Tarweed (Hemizonia congesta ssp. Luzulifolia).
A beekeeper friend writes: “I asked an old beekeeper I met at the annual PV picnic … if he knew why my late fall honey was so dark and had a lovely strong flavor. He said it was Tarweed honey. I was stunned that a plant with such an awful name could help produce my best and most popular honey.” Valerie Baldwin, this collection is for you.
Summertime here is arid. Springtime’s flowering plants have mostly set seed, dried up, and retreated underground. Few flowers are available to sustain pollen- and nectar-seeking insects until the rainy season.
Hayfield Tarweed springs to the rescue. Emerging from the drying soil just as grasses turn brown, sinking roots deep beneath the moisture-depleted surface layer, it enlivens the drab land with bobbing white flowers. Its leaves and stems are covered with an aromatic, sticky substance – reducing evaporation as well as discouraging browsing. Your pants and boots will remember you walked through tarweed! The air is filled with its distinctive scent -- sweet, pungent, alive.
Here are highlights of my summers with Tarweed in Portola Valley, chronologically, starting in 2010. Photos are from June to September -- August is the prime month. Closeups highlight honeybees, native bees, flies, beetles, moths and butterflies. (Their predator, Crab Spider (Diaea livens), is here as well.) Broad landscapes show the variety of grasslands where Hayfield Tarweed is at home. Some of these photos are from the PV section of Stanford’s Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve (‘Ootchamin ‘Ooyakma).
Western Honeybees (Apis mellifera) came to the New World with European settlers, and are firmly established here (the state insect of 20 states). Hayfield Tarweed is native to California. Together, they make a wonderful deep-auburn summer honey. So toast up an English muffin, spread liberally with butter (our cows evolved in the Near East), top with Tarweed honey. Best served with a hot cup of English Breakfast tea – another story in itself. Celebrate our wide world.
Tarweed tops off our summers.
A beekeeper friend writes: “I asked an old beekeeper I met at the annual PV picnic … if he knew why my late fall honey was so dark and had a lovely strong flavor. He said it was Tarweed honey. I was stunned that a plant with such an awful name could help produce my best and most popular honey.” Valerie Baldwin, this collection is for you.
Summertime here is arid. Springtime’s flowering plants have mostly set seed, dried up, and retreated underground. Few flowers are available to sustain pollen- and nectar-seeking insects until the rainy season.
Hayfield Tarweed springs to the rescue. Emerging from the drying soil just as grasses turn brown, sinking roots deep beneath the moisture-depleted surface layer, it enlivens the drab land with bobbing white flowers. Its leaves and stems are covered with an aromatic, sticky substance – reducing evaporation as well as discouraging browsing. Your pants and boots will remember you walked through tarweed! The air is filled with its distinctive scent -- sweet, pungent, alive.
Here are highlights of my summers with Tarweed in Portola Valley, chronologically, starting in 2010. Photos are from June to September -- August is the prime month. Closeups highlight honeybees, native bees, flies, beetles, moths and butterflies. (Their predator, Crab Spider (Diaea livens), is here as well.) Broad landscapes show the variety of grasslands where Hayfield Tarweed is at home. Some of these photos are from the PV section of Stanford’s Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve (‘Ootchamin ‘Ooyakma).
Western Honeybees (Apis mellifera) came to the New World with European settlers, and are firmly established here (the state insect of 20 states). Hayfield Tarweed is native to California. Together, they make a wonderful deep-auburn summer honey. So toast up an English muffin, spread liberally with butter (our cows evolved in the Near East), top with Tarweed honey. Best served with a hot cup of English Breakfast tea – another story in itself. Celebrate our wide world.
Tarweed tops off our summers.
Dan Quinn