39 

 CORAL or TRUMPET HONEY- 

 SUCKLE. 



This is a very ornamental woody 

 vine growing from eight to fifteen 

 feet in lengthy climbing over bushes 

 or twining about the branches of 

 young trees. The leaves are arrang- 

 ed oppositely, the lower ones having 

 short stems, while those near the 

 ends of the branches clasp the stem 

 and are united at their bases. The 

 form of the flowers and the terminal 

 leaves is shown in the opposite illus- 

 tration. 



As is well known, red is the favor- 

 ite color of our tiny Ruby-throated 

 Hummingbird and we find that this 

 bird is one of the flower's chief visitors and about the only 

 one capable of reaching the nectar at the end of the long 

 slender tube. In a wild state, Coral Honeysuckle is locally 

 distributed in southern New England and New York but 

 is very abundant in southern states. In fall, each flower 

 is replaced by an orange colored berry, these berries being 

 eaten by migrating birds and thus the seeds often scattered 

 far and wide from the place of their growth. This is one 

 of Nature's surest schemes to insure the starting of new 

 colonies of plants. 



WILD WHITE HONEYSUCKLE, which is naturaliz- 

 ed from Europe, grows very abundantly in the south and is 

 of local occurrence in tangled thickets in southern New Eng- 

 land and New York. It is an agile climber, often twining 

 its way up trees to the height of forty or more feet. Seated 

 in clusters in the cup formed by the united terminal pair of 

 leaves are the handsome and very fragrant flowers. The 

 corolla tube is white within and pinkish or yellow on the 

 outside, spreading into two lips, the upper of which has 

 four lobes and the lower one being narrow and curved down- 

 ward. The pistil and five stamens are very long and pro- 

 trude far beyond the confines of the corolla. Its seeds are 

 spread by migrating birds which eat the bright red berries 

 that adorn it in fall. 



