Rhodora 
JOURNAL OF 
THE NEW ENGLAND BOTANICAL CLUB 
Vol. 12. November, 1910. No. 143. 
THE VARIATIONS OF LONICERA CAERULEA IN EASTERN 
AMERICA. 
M. L. FERNALD and K. M. WIEGAND. 
As recently pointed out by Mr. Alfred Rehder in his Synopsis of 
the Genus Lonicera, the American Lonicera caerulea differs from the 
plant of the Old World in several rather pronounced characters: 
“Winter buds upright and the branches generally spreading at an 
angle of less than 45°; corolla usually campanulate and glabrous, 
tube as long as or shorter than limb; . . . . accessory buds and stipular 
appendages wanting," while the Eurasian shrubs have “Winter 
buds more or less spreading and the branches diverging generally 
at an angle of more than 45°; tube of the generally funnel-form corolla 
usually longer than limb, mostly pilose without; stipular appendages 
and accessory buds often present.” Of the Eurasian shrub several 
rather pronounced varieties (with numerous forms) are maintained, 
but all the American material is treated by Mr. Rehder as var. villosa 
(Michx.) T. & G., though with the qualification: “In regard to the 
pubescence the American plant seems nearly as variable as that of 
the Old World.” 
While collecting in western Newfoundland the writers were im- 
pressed by the very different appearance of two extremes of the 
species as found there, and upon further study of the question feel 
that the two should be distinguished as varieties. In one the leaves 
(above as well as beneath), new shoots, and sometimes the old bark 
are densely pilose or short-villous; in the other the leaves are sparingly 
pilose or glabrate, and the new shoots sparingly pilose or puberulent 
at tip but usually glabrous or glabrate below. As far as the herbarium 
114th. Ann. Rep. Missouri Bot. Gard. 69, 73 (1903). 
