A modern reference to temperate woody plants, including updated content from this site and much new material, can be found at Trees and Shrubs Online.

Lonicera sempervirens L.

Trumpet Honeysuckle

Modern name

Lonicera sempervirens L.

A vigorous, climbing shrub, evergreen in mild localities; young shoots glabrous, glaucous. Leaves oval or somewhat obovate, 112 to 234 in. long, 34 to 2 in. wide, rich green and glabrous above, bluish and slightly downy beneath; stalk 14 in. or less long. One or two of the uppermost pairs of leaves are united and form a circular or oblong disk. Flowers unscented, rich orange scarlet outside, yellower within, 112 to 2 in. long, produced in three or four whorls (each whorl of usually six flowers), forming a terminal stalked spike. Corolla-tube slender, slightly swollen near the base; the four upper lobes are smaller than the lower one, but the corolla is not markedly two-lipped; style glabrous. Bot. Mag., t. 781.

Native of the eastern and southern United States, reaching as far north as Connecticut and westwards to Texas; introduced in 1656. This beautiful honey­suckle thrives best in the milder parts but is hardier than was once supposed and should succeed with the protection of a wall over much of the British Isles. It received an Award of Merit in 1964.

L. sempervirens is a parent of L. × brownii and L. × heckrottii.

cv. ‘Magnifica’. – Said to have bright red flowers.

var. minor Ait. – Described by Aiton in 1789 as a variety with oblong leaves. The plant discussed and figured under this name in Bot. Mag., t. 1753 (1815) was from a reintroduction by Frasers’ nursery of Sloane Square, London. It was said to have come from Carolina and to be more delicate, with slenderer flowers, than the plants from Virginia. Philip Miller also made a distinction between the Carolina and Virginia forms: ‘The old sort, which came from Virginia, has stronger shoots; the leaves are of a brighter green; the bunches of flowers are larger, and deeper coloured, than the other which came from Carolina’ (Gard. Dict., 1768). The distinction seems to have some basis, in that plants answering to the description of var. minor have a more southerly distribution than the type, and might be expected to be more tender.

cv. ‘Superba’. – Leaves broadly oval. Corollas orange-scarlet on the outside (Gartenfl. (1853), p. 3).

f. sulphurea (Jacques) Rehd. – Corollas yellow on the outside. Occasional in the wild state.


Genus

Lonicera

Other species in the genus