Yellow and Orange 



Sweet Wild Honeysuckle, or Woodbine; Italian 

 or Perfoliate Honeysuckle 



{Lonicera Caprifolium) Honeysuckle family 



{L. grata of Gray) 



Flowers — White within, the tube pinkish, soon fading yellow, i 

 to 1 }i in. long, very fragrant ; borne in terminal -whorls 

 seated in the united pair of upper leaves. Calyx small, 

 5-toothed ; corolla slender, tubular, 2-lipped ; upper lip 

 4-lobed ; lower lip narrow, curved downward ; 5 stamens 

 and I style far protruding. Stem: Climbing high, smooth. 

 Leaves: Upper pairs united around the stem into an oval 

 disk or shallow cup ; lower leaves opposite, but not united ; 

 oval, entire. Fruit: Red berries, clustered. 



Preferred Habitat — Thickets, wayside hedges, rocky woodlands. 



Flowering Season — May — June. 



Distribution — New England and Michigan to the Southern States. 



" Escaped from cultivation and naturalized." How does it 

 happen that this vine, a native of Europe, is now so common in 

 the Eastern United States as to be called the American woodbine .? 

 Had Columbus been a botanist and wandered about our continent 

 in search of flowers, he would have found very few that were 

 familiar to him at home, except such as were common both to 

 Europe and Asia also. Where the Aleutian Islands jut far out 

 into the Pacific, and the strongest of ocean currents flows our way, 

 must once have been a substantial highroad for beasts, birds, and 

 vegetables, if not for men as well ; but in the wide, briny Atlan- 

 tic no European seed could live long enough to germinate after 

 drifting across to our shores, if, indeed, it ever reached here. Once 

 the American colonies came to be peopled with homesick Euro- 

 peans, who sent home for everything portable they had loved 

 there, enormous numbers of trees, shrubs, plants, and seeds were 

 respectably carried across in ships ; the seeds of others stole a 

 passage, as they do this day, among the hay used in packing. 

 This was the chance for expansion they had been waiting for 

 for ages. While many cultivated species found it practically im- 

 possible to escape from the vigilance of gardeners here, others, 

 with a better plan for disseminating seed, quickly ran wild. Now 

 some of the commonest plants we have are of European origin. 

 This honeysuckle, by bearing red berries to attract migrating 

 birds in autumn, soon escaped the confines of gardens. Its undi- 

 gested seeds, dropped in the woodland far from the parent vine, 

 germinated quite as readily as in Europe, and pursued in peace 

 their natural mode of existence, until here too we now have 



banks 



" Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine." 



28 337 



