Annual everlasting
An annual of dry slopes with papery pink-purple heads in summer; it makes a small nectar contribution and is visited mostly by wild bees.
- Nectar
- Medium
- Pollen
- Low
- Flowering
- JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
- Height
- 0.2-0.6 m
- Life cycle
- Annual
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Annual everlasting is a slender-stemmed annual growing on dry, stony slopes, field edges and steppe grassland from the Balkans to Anatolia and the Caucasus. Its heads are surrounded by pink-purple, papery bracts that keep their colour after drying. The small tubular florets in the centre offer a little nectar; honey bees call now and then, but its main visitors are wild bees and butterflies.
Flowering
It flowers from June to August. Staying in flower during the dry summer is a contribution, if a small one.
Honey and pollen
Its contribution to honey and pollen collection is small; no honey bearing its name is known.
Note for the beekeeper
It is collected for dried-flower arrangements and grown in gardens. Sowing it for beekeeping is not recommended; in steppe and hillside apiaries it should be regarded as part of the natural vegetation. Under the name everlasting it can be confused with Helichrysum species.