 |
Nowadays red-flowered honeysuckles aren't nearly as common as they used to be, but if you walk around enough you're bound to spot sprinklings of red, slenderly cylindrical, 1.5-inch long (4 cm) flowers ornamenting this or that tree at the woods' edge, or maybe glorifying a fencepost.
Most people call the vine bearing these pretty flowers Red Honeysuckle, though books usually apply other names, such as Coral Honeysuckle, or Trumpet Honeysuckle. It's LONICERA SEMPERVIRENS.
Red Honeysuckle is a native species, not a foreign ornamental that has escaped. Still, horticulturalists have been so impressed with it that they've fiddled with its genes, hybridizing it with other species, creating much larger blossoms, and flowers of different hues.
Complements: Jim Conrad. Currently Jim lives a hermit's life (with Internet access...) in the forest east of Natchez, Mississippi. He publishes the Natchez Naturalist newsletter from the forest and fields of the Sandy Creek Watershed 12 miles ESE of Natchez, Mississippi. |
