CAPRIFOLIACEAE HONEYSUCKLE FAMIL’ 
SMOOTH-LEAF HONEYSUCKLE 
Lonicera dioica L. 
The Honeysuckle family contains some of our most highly 
prized ornamental shrubs and vines but otherwise is not of 
much economic importance. Climbing Honeysuckles are exten- 
sively used for cov- 
ering trellises and 
for other ornamental 
purposes, and in 
most cases foreign 
species are prefer- 
red to the native. 
The Smooth-leaf 
Honeysuckle is 
found in moist and 
dry woods and in bogs from Maine 
to Manitoba, south to North Caro- 
lina and Missouri. It is a smooth 
twining shrub with stems 3-10 feet 
long. The leaves have a thin waxy 
coat on the lower surface. The bases 
of the uppermost and wider leaves 
are grown together but those lower 
and narrower are merely sessile or 
short petioled. 
The flowers are produced in termi- 
nal clusters in May and June. Two 
color forms are recognized; one is 
yellowish green usually tinged with purple, and the other, muc 
more common in Illinois, is red. The calyx is short, tubular an 
slightly 5-toothed. The tubular corolla, with 5 inserted stamen 
is swollen on 1 side at the base, and at the other end 2-lippe 
and 5-lobed. The pistil consists of a 2 or 3-celled ovary, a slend: 
style and an unlobed stigma. Stamens, style and the inner su 
face of the corolla tube are hairy. The fruit is a red few-seede 
berry. 
Resembling the Smooth-leaf Honeysuckle but covered with 
whitish bloom and having larger flowers is Sullivant’s Honeysuckl 
Lonicera Sullivantii Gray, which may be found blooming from Ap: 
to September in low grounds or on hillsides. The tube of the pa 
yellow flowers is about one-half inch long, slightly exceeding the lim 
and the yellow fruit is one-quarter inch in diameter. 
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