Friday, November 9, 2007

Wild Honeysuckle, Lonicera japonica


The few remaining fall flowers of the wild Japanese honeysuckle, Lonicera japonica . Here's a good site which gives more information about this beautiful and highly scented but very invasive alien.

I was wondering why there were white and yellow flowers. I thought maybe one was fragrant and not the other but both seem to have an equally sweet smell. Then I read the info on the website above and found that the white flowers turn to yellow as they age.

7 comments:

Priscilla George said...

I love honeysuckles. When I was I kid I would tear off the yellow flowers and suck on them. I stopped doing that once I found an ant in one.

Ki said...

Hi Vanillalotus,
When I was a kid, I got stung by a bee on the hand when I picked a bell shaped flower with the bee inside. Stopped me from ever doing that again. We use to suck the nectar from several kinds of flowers when we were kids. Never had an ant in one though. I don't know why we did it because I remember that it was just kind of a mild but sickly sweet taste.

Verena said...

Hi Ki,
it´s long time ago that I posted a comment, but I´m back again.
I like the pictures of the sumac trees (we have it here in Austria too and I like the different colours in autum very much) and the dahlia, which I had in my garden too.
I hope you are ok and here from you soon again! Lots of greetings, Verena

Ruth Welter said...

Very pretty Ki...amazing there is still so much happy green color out there at this time of the year.

Ki said...

Hello Verena,
Your legal schedule must be very busy. I don't know how you manage to do so much and garden too. Thank you for the comment. I will be by for a visit soon.

--------------------------------------
Hi Ruth,
We've had several days with temps around the freezing mark but the trees and other plants don't seem to want to go into dormancy. Our linden tree has kept all it's leaves and they still remain green although the edges were curled from the frost. Very strange indeed. Thanks for stopping by.

DeeMom said...

So delicate

Ki said...

Hi Deemom,
I know some who curse as they wage battle against the honeysuckle. But what would spring be without the intermingled scent of honeysuckle and wild roses? I do like this fall photo. The plant does seem non-threatening and delicate.