LONICERA SEMPERVIRENS. SCARLET HONEYSUCKLE. I 83 



too large to penetrate into the narrow part of the tube, and have 

 not a long tongue like the sphinges, to reach the juice, make a 

 puncture towards the bottom and so fairly tap the juice." It may 

 be remarked here that the word " Honeysuckle," by all the 

 earlier writers, seems to have been confined to the flowers of 

 the Woodbine plant. 



"A honeysuckle, 

 The amorous woodbine's offspring," 



as Ben Jonson expresses it, and this would leave Dr. Prior's ex- 

 planation quite out of the question. It is worthy of remark, by 

 the way, that Green notes the habit of the larger insects of boring 

 into the corolla from the outside, an insect-practice supposed to 

 be among the discoveries of these modern days. 



Another name of somewhat ancient times was Caprifolmni, and 

 this has been taken as a name for the whole order — Caprifoliacecs. 

 In like manner this name puzzles the commentators, and is thought 

 to be derived from Latin words signifying a goat and a leaf, 

 "because goats are fond of the leaves." This is an unlikely 

 reason. A popular name for the Woodbine among some of the 

 English peasantry who know nothing of Latin is "Caprifoly; " and 

 it is probably, therefore, a corruption from some forgotten source. 



The botanical name, Lonicera, credited to Linnseus in our text- 

 books, seems to have been first applied by Ray, a noted English 

 botanist who flourished towards the end of the seventeenth cen- 

 tury ; and it commemorates Adam Lonitzer, who wrote several 

 large folio volumes on the medical properties of plants which 

 were published in Frankfort between 1551 and 1564. He was 

 born at Marbourg in 1528 and died in Frankfort in 1586. The 

 name appears in Plumier's works in 1703, and he is often credited 

 with the authorship of the name. 



Independently of its family history and generical associations, our 

 Trumpet Honeysuckle has abundant points of its own to interest 

 the student and the mere lover of wild American floral scenery. 

 There is scarcely anything more lovely than this species when it 

 gets a chance to clamber over low bushes on the outskirts of 



