Echium angustifolium
Bugloss of sandy and stony Mediterranean coasts with red-purple flowers; a good spring nectar source for honey bees.
- Nectar
- Good
- Pollen
- Medium
- Flowering
- JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
- Height
- 0.2-0.5 m
- Life cycle
- Perennial
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Echium angustifolium is a coarsely hairy perennial, trailing or semi-erect, that grows in the eastern Mediterranean, including the Aegean and Mediterranean coasts of Turkey, on dunes, rocky slopes, among maquis and along roadsides. Funnel-shaped flowers, reddish-pink to purple, open on branches rising between its narrow, lance-shaped leaves. Like most viper's buglosses it is rich in nectar, and honey bees work it regularly.
Flowering
It flowers from March to June; on the coast it starts early and lasts a long time.
Honey and pollen
It has no honey of its own; it goes into the mixed spring honeys of coastal regions. Like other members of its family it contains pyrrolizidine alkaloids; because the plant grows scattered, its share in the honey is usually low.
Note for the beekeeper
Being resistant to drought and salty winds, it is worth keeping in coastal bee gardens and at the foot of dry-stone walls. Its yield is not as high as that of the common viper's bugloss, Echium vulgare.