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Title: Information Sheet, Japanese Honeysuckle





Information Sheet, Japanese Honeysuckle

Lonicera japonica, Japanese Honeysuckle (Caprifoliaceae = Honeysuckle Family).   Alien from Asia.   Flowers: May – October.   [Latin Lonicera, after Adam Lonitzer (1528-1586), German herbalist; japonica, Japanese]   (Fernald 1950, 1334; Strausbaugh and Core 1978, 892-893)

General roles in forests.   Japanese Honeysuckle is an autotroph that lives in forests, forest edges, fields, successional areas, a yards, and elsewhere.   Many kinds of organisms consume dead and living Japanese Honeysuckle fruits, leaves, roots, and stems.

Specific roles in forests.   Japanese Honeysuckle is a major alien, invasive plant in the WDC Area and many other areas of Eastern U.S.   It covers areas of forests and other habitats, where it can cover thousands of acres of native plants and kill them because they do not get enough sunlight.   It also binds stems of woody plants as they increase their stem sizes and are constrained by Japanese Honeysuckle stems that twine around their stems.   The exceptional botanist Fernald (1950, p. 1334), described Japanese Honeysuckle as “a most pernicious and dangerous weed, overwhelming and strangling native flora; most difficult to eradicate, yet people continue to plant it.”   Nurseries should not sell Japanese Honeysuckle.   This vine shares pollinators (e.g., flower flies, the Giant Carpenter Bee and sphinx moths), with many native and alien forest plants.

      Leaf, root, and stem feeders (parasites) of honeysuckles in general in the U.S. are: 3 aphid spp., 2 bacterium spp., 3 beetle spp., 1 borer sp., 1 bug sp., 20 fungus spp., 2 mealybug spp., 1 midge sp., 4 moth spp., 1 nematode sp., 1 sawfly sp., 10 scale spp., 1 virus kind, 1 weevil sp., and 2 whitefly spp. (Horst 1990; Westcott 1973, 551).

      Japanese Honeysuckle flowers have long corollas, and Honey Bee tongues are not long enough to reach nectar within them.   They can obtain nectar through holes cut into Japanese Honeysuckle corollas by bumble bees and Giant Carpenter Bees.   The bees that cut holes in corollas are “robbers.”   The bees and other arthropods that use holes made by robbers are “thieves.”   Many kinds of arthropods consume Japanese Honeysuckle nectar, pollen, or both; they include bee, butterfly, flower fly, moth, and wasp spp.   Honeysuckles (as a group) are minor honey plants in the continental U.S. (Pellett 1978).

      Songbirds eat Japanese Honeysuckle fruits.   Masses of Japanese Honeysuckle are good cover for birds, mammals, and other wildlife (Stephens 1969, 227).

Human uses.   We grow Japanese Honeysuckle as an ornamental and soil-erosion controller.   Highway Departments plant it on new road cuts and grades to curb soil erosion.   Some people use its flowers, leaves, and stems to increase their general and sexual vitality and prolong their lives (Stark 1980, 44).   Its flowers are very fragrant and can perfume the air with a strong sweet scent.   The scent can be very strong on some June nights.

Comments.   Japanese Honeysuckle is a noxious weed in places where it crowds out native plants, e.g., in the WDC Area.   The USDA hasn't imported an insect to consume and control it, because it can't find one specific for Japanese Honeysuckle.   Plants with trunks constricted by Japanese Honeysuckle are common in Glover-Archbold Park and elsewhere.   Amur Honeysuckle (= Maack’s Honeysuckle, an alien, invasive small tree), Common Elderberry, Standish’s Bush Honeysuckle (alien, invasive shrub), Common Elderberry (a small tree), and Viburnums (shrubs and small trees) are other members of the Honeysuckle Family that grow in the WDC Area.

E.M.B. (August 2002)








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