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Lonicera morrowii A. Gray

Modern name

Lonicera tatarica var. morrowii (A. Gray) Q. E. Yang, Landrein, Borosova & J. Osborne

A vigorous, deciduous shrub 8 ft or more high, of loose, spreading habit; branchlets hollow; young shoots grey with down. Leaves oval or ovate, 1 to 212 in. long, half as wide, rounded or tapering at the base, rounded or with a short slender point at the apex, downy and dull green above, greyish and woolly beneath; stalk 16 in. long. Flowers creamy white changing to yellow with age, produced in pairs from the middle or upper leaf-axils of short branchlets, in May and June. Corolla downy, two-lipped, with a slender tube 14 in. long, the deep spoon-shaped lobes 12 in. long, spreading; style hairy; flower-stalk up to 35 in. long; bracts hairy on the margins. Fruits dark red, rarely yellow.

Native of Japan; allied to L. xylosteum, from which it differs in having a glabrous, not glandular, ovary. It is useful for furnishing semi-wild parts of the garden.

L. × bella Zab. – Hybrids between L. morrowii and L. tatarica raised in the Münden Botanic Garden from seeds of L. morrowii received from the St Petersburg Botanic Garden before 1889. They show the influence of L. tatarica in their more pointed almost glabrous leaves and larger mostly pink or red flowers. Several of the seedlings were given distinguishing names, including ‘Candida’ with white flowers and ‘Atrorosea’, in which the flowers are dark rose with a lighter edge.


Genus

Lonicera

Other species in the genus