My Dad grew up on the short-grass prairie, and taught me this.

Now, I will teach you.

Those long, green tubes on the flowers of Indian paintbrush?

The plant fills them with nectar, presumably as an enticement for nectar feeders to come along and help pollinate the flowers. And when "ripe", you can pluck them off the plant and suck one delicious, sweet drop of honey out of the other end.

Thus depriving the hummingbirds and hummingbird moths (otherwise, correctly, known as sphinx moths)

of one droplet of the energy used to maintain and reproduce themselves.

So I never strip an entire plant of all its tubes, nor do I take all the ripe tubes from any paintbrush stand.

But this year, that's not a problem.