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Lonicera quinquelocularis Hardwicke

Modern name

Lonicera quinquelocularis Hard.

Synonyms

L. diversifolia Wall.

A large deciduous shrub 12 to 15 ft high in cultivation, said to be sometimes a small tree where wild; young shoots purplish, very downy. Leaves oval, sometimes inclined to obovate and orbicular, rounded or tapered at the base, mostly short-pointed, but sometimes rounded at the apex, 1 to 212 in. long, 58 to 1 12 in. wide, dull green and at first downy above, greyish and more downy beneath. Flowers creamy white changing to yellow, arranged in pairs, produced on a stalk 112 in. long from the leaf-axils in June. Corolla two lipped, 34 in. across; the upper lip round-toothed; tube 14 in. long, bellied; stamens about as long as the upper lip, downy at the base. Berries translucent white, round to oval.

Native of the Himalaya and China; long cultivated at Kew. It is a robust and, when in flower, rather handsome shrub, flowering more freely than the majority of bush honeysuckles do with us. It is very distinct on account of its white transparent fruits, which distinguish it from L. deflexicalyx, maackii, xylosteum, and other of its immediate allies.

f. translucens (Carr.) Zab. L. translucens Carr. – Leaves longer pointed; more markedly ciliate, and the upper surface rougher than in L. quinquelocularis the corolla-tube also is shorter and more protuberant on one side. A sturdy bush 10 ft high, that flowers freely. The epithet ‘translucens’, implying as it does that this form has the fruits more transparent than in the type, is misleading. There is no difference between them in this respect.


Genus

Lonicera

Other species in the genus