Not a large family, mostly of the northern hemisphere; herbs,
shrubs, shrubby vines or trees; leaves opposite, usually without
stipules; flowers perfect, regular or irregular; calyx with three to
five divisions; corolla usually with five united lobes, sometimes
two-lipped; stamens on the corolla tube, usually as many as its lobes
and alternate with them; ovary inferior, with one style; fruit a berry,
stone-fruit, or capsule.
There are many kinds of Lonicera, shrubs, or twining woody vines;
leaves usually without teeth or lobes, the upper ones sometimes united
around the stem; flowers usually irregular; calyx with five, minute
teeth; corolla more or less funnel-shaped, often two-lipped, four lobes
forming the upper lip and one lobe the under, tube often swollen at
base; stamens five; style with a cap-like stigma; fruit berrylike.
[Sidenote: =Orange Honeysuckle=
_Lonicèra ciliòsa_
=Orange and scarlet
Summer
Northwest=]
A climbing or trailing shrub, with brilliant flowers, set off by bright
green leaves, thin in texture, with pale "bloom" on the under side and
usually hairy margins, the lower ones with short leaf-stalks, the upper
usually united and forming a disk. The flowers are scentless, about an
inch and a quarter long, with smooth, trumpet-shaped corollas, bright
orange at base, shading to scarlet above, with a bright green stigma
and crimson or brownish anthers. This lives in the woods and sometimes
climbs to the tops of quite tall trees, ornamenting them with its
splendid clusters of flowers and sprinkling the forest floor with its
fallen blossoms in a shower of scarlet and gold.
[Sidenote: =Black Twinberry=
_Lonicèra involucràta_
=Yellow
Spring, summer
West=]
A bush, from three to seven feet high, with thick, woody, pale gray
stems and bright green leaves, glossy and thin in texture, or rather
coarse and hairy, with fine hairs along the margins. The flower-stalks
each bear a pair of flowers, without scent, emerging from an involucre
of two bracts. The corolla is rather hairy and sticky, half an inch or
more long, a pretty shade of warm dull yellow, sometimes tinged with
red outside, with five, short, nearly equal lobes, the tube swollen at
base. The involucre becomes dark red, its lobes turn back and display
a pair of berries, disagreeable to the taste, as large as peas, nearly
black, the whole affair striking in color and form. This grows in
moist mountain woods and seems to have smoother, glossier foliage, and
smaller flowers, in Utah than elsewhere.
[Illustration: Orange Honeysuckle--L. ciliosa.