8 HONEYSUCKLE. 



Description. — Honeysuckle is a twining shrub, rising to the 

 height of six to twenty feet ; the root is ligneous, and gives off 

 numerous creeping stoloniferous fibres. The bark is of a pale- 

 brown colour, the branches opposite, tinged with purple. The 

 leaves are opposite, ovate or somewhat elliptical, distinct, sessile, 

 smooth, or somewhat pubescent above, glaucous beneath ; the 

 upper ones smaller. The flowers are large, yellowish or white, 

 with roseate streaks, and are disposed in terminal, ovate, imbricated 

 heads. The calyx is superior, small, and deeply five-toothed. The 

 corolla is monopetalous, tubular, ringent, divided at the limb into 

 five unequal segments, the lower being larger, and more open and 

 revolute. The stamens are five, with subulate filaments attached 

 to the upper part of the tube, terminated by oblong anthers. The 

 germen is inferior, globose, with a filiform style, crowned by a 

 clavate trifid stigma. The fruit consists of about six globose 

 scarlet berries, collected into a terminal head, and accompanied 

 by the permanent bracteae ; each berry has three cells whea 

 young, but when mature it is usually one-celled, and contains, in 

 the midst of pulp, four or five crustaceous seeds, rounded on one 

 side, convex on the other. Plate 27, fig. 3, (a) the corolla opened, 

 with the stamens and pistil ; (b) the head of fruit ; (c) a berry cut 

 horizontally, to show the seeds ; (d) a seed, magnified. 



Honeysuckle is plentiful in the hedges, woods, and thickets of the 

 middle of Europe, and in similar situations throughout Britain. It 

 flowers in June and July, and usually again in September and 

 October. 



The generic name was given in honour of Lonicer, a German 

 botanist, who died in 1586. This species is most probably the 

 TrspixAu/xevov of the ancient Greeks, and was so denominated from 

 mpixXsM to entwine. 



This plant, for the beauty and exquisite nectareous fragrance of 

 its flowers, is a favourite denizen of the garden and shrubbery ; but 

 nowhere is it more beautiful than in its native recesses. Hence it 

 is often mentioned by poets ; some of the following quotations, 

 however, are not very complimentary : — 



" Bid her steal into the pleached bower, 

 Where honeysuckles, ripened by the sun, 

 Forbid the sun to enter." 



Shakspeare, 



