high in March until it is 8 feet high in November. Purple-flowered mint is also found in Alabama and in tropical America.

PURPLE THISTLE (Eryngium Leavenworthii). — A smooth herb, 1 to 2 feet tall, with purplish flowers in dense heads and spiny-toothed sessile leaves, resembling a thistle; but it belongs to the carrot family (Umbelliferae). At Bay City, Texas, there is often a honey flow from this plant in July. It furnishes the most nectar during extremely hot dry weather. The honey is dark-colored with a poor flavor. In dry soil from Kansas to Texas.

QUEEN OF THE MEADOW. — See Boneset.

RABBIT-BRUSH (Chrysothamnus). — Rayless goldenrod. Chico. Bees gather a moderately large amount of honey from the flowers, which appear in the fall. The honey is a deep yellow color, thin, and poor in quality. It granulates quickly even in the comb, and when it is present in a section of alfalfa or sweet clover it granulates before either of these honeys. The intense yellow color of the pollen stains the surface of the combs. At Independence, Inyo County, California, according to Wm. Muth Rasmussen, C. nauseosus, a perennial plant, is fairly abundant in waste places. It bears small yellow flowers in clusters at the ends of the stems, which are ash-colored or white. The flowers appear in September and October, and bees work vigorously on them until they fade. The honey is dark and has so disagreeable an odor, and tastes so nauseous, that even the Indians will not eat it. Many beekeepers remove their sections when rabbit-brush begins to bloom. (Fig. 100.)

There are 18 species of rabbit-brush, or rayless goldenrod, in the Rocky Mountain Highlands, several of which are very common in the dry hills and plains of Colorado and Wyoming, as C. lanceolatus, C. pumilus, C. frigidus, and C. plattensis. They are shrubby plants with narrow entire leaves and yellow flowers, which open in the fall and resemble the goldenrod. The white, tufted appearance of the inflorescence after blooming suggested the name rabbit-brush.

RADISH (Raphanus Bhaphanistrum). — Wild radish, or jointed charlock, is a troublesome weed in fields, which yields a small amount of nectar and pollen.

RAMONA. — See Sage.

RASPBERRY (Rubus idaeus variety aculeatissimus). — The wild red raspberry is a valuable honey plant in the northern part of the Southern Peninsula of Michigan, in the Adirondack Mountain region of New York, in north-central Pennsylvania, and to a smaller extent in northern New England. Probably no other raspberry location is so well known as that of the Lower Michigan Peninsula. The northern portion of this section of the state was once covered by an extensive forest of white and Norway pine, in which there were belts of magnificent hardwood timber consisting largely of beech, maple, and elm. Nearly all of the pine has in recent years been cut for lumber. During the first dry season following the cutting, fire burns over the stumpland, leaving a blackened, desolate, almost weird pine barren. Two or three years later willow-herb may spring up, but raspberries are either entirely absent from the pine barrens, or are so short and stunted as to be of little value as honey producers.

It is upon tracts from which the hardwood lumber has been cut that the wild red raspberry offers as reliable a bee pasturage as is to be found anywhere. So luxuriant is the growth that it is possible while riding along a wood road, to pick the luscious ripe berries from the tall bushes bending with the fruit. If the land is not burned over, the rich loam, mulched with brush, produces large thrifty bushes, which yield great crops of honey for several years. A hive on scales showed in fair weather a daily gain of 6 to 13 pounds. But the rapidly growing young trees soon smother the bushes, and the beekeeper is forced to seek a new location. If, however, the land is occasionally burned over, the average annual surplus is less, but the bee pasturage lasts much longer. Thus the raspberry district is constantly changing, and this shrub is not a permanent source of nectar in one locality,