Classification

Written by A.J. Laros

Lonicera is a member of the Caprifoliaceae and contains about 180 deciduous or sometimes evergreen species of bushy, scandent, twining or creeping shrubs, with usually peeling bark. Named by Linnaeus after Johann Lonitzer (1499 - 1569), a German naturalist. The leading generic characters are: leaves opposite, usually simple, entire, sometimes pinnately lobed, sessile or shortly petioled, sometimes with connate stipules, upper leaves often fushed, forming a disk. Flowers pentamerous, in axillary pairs on a common stalk, or in 6 flowered whorls in terminal spikes or panicles, subtended by bracts and usualy bractlets; calyx five-toothed (sometimes almost untoothed); corolla tubular or bell-shaped and five-lobed, the lobes sometimes equal, but more frequently forming two "lips", the upper lip composed of four short lobes, the lower lip of a single strap-shaped lobe. The flowers often change from white to yellow in age and are often very fragrance. Stamens 5, included or exserted, ovary inferior.  Fruit a fleshy, many seeded berry, white, yellow, red or black. Distribution: temperate and subtropical regions of the northern hemisphere, northward extending to the arctic circle and south to the Malayan Archipelago, southern Asia, North Africa, Madeira and Mexico.