Morrow's honeysuckle (
Lonicera morrowii) is a
deciduousDeciduous means falling off at maturity or tending to fall off and is typically used in reference to trees or shrubs that lose their leaves seasonally and to the shedding of other plant structures such as petals after flowering or fruit when ripe...
honeysuckleHoneysuckles are arching shrubs or twining vines in the family Caprifoliaceae, native to the Northern Hemisphere. There are about 180 species of honeysuckle, with by far the greatest diversity in China, where over 100 species occur; by comparison, Europe and North America have only about 20 native...
in the family
CaprifoliaceaeThe Caprifoliaceae or honeysuckle family is a clade consisting of about 800 dicotyledonous flowering plants, with a nearly cosmopolitan distribution; centres of diversity are found in eastern North America and eastern Asia, while they are absent in tropical and southern Africa.They are mostly...
, native to
Japanis an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
,
KoreaKorea is a civilization and formerly unified nation currently divided into two states. Located on the Korean Peninsula, it borders China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the east by the Korea Strait....
, and
ManchuriaManchuria is a historical name given to a vast geographic region in northeast Asia. Depending on the definition of its extent, Manchuria either falls entirely within China, or is divided between China and Russia...
. It is a
shrubA shrub or bush is a horticultural rather than strictly botanical category of woody plant, distinguished from a tree by its multiple stems and lower height, usually less than 5-6 m tall. A large number of plants can be either shrubs or trees, depending on the growing conditions they experience...
, reaching a height of 2-2.5 m, with oblong
leavesIn botany, a leaf is an above-ground plant organ specialized for photosynthesis. For this purpose, a leaf is typically flat and thin. There is continued debate about whether the flatness of leaves evolved to expose the chloroplasts to more light or to increase the absorption of carbon dioxide. In...
4-6 cm long. It leafs out quite early in the spring, and in North America is commonly the first deciduous shrub with foliage in March. The
flowerA flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to mediate the union of male sperm with female ovum in order to produce seeds...
s are white to pale yellow, and the
fruitThe term fruit has different meanings dependent on context, and the term is not synonymous in food preparation and biology. Fruits are the means by which flowering plants disseminate seeds, and the presence of seeds indicates that a structure is most likely a fruit, though not all seeds come from...
is a dark red
berryThe botanical definition of a berry is a simple fruit produced from a single ovary, such as a grape or a tomato. The berry is the most common type of fleshy fruit in which the entire ovary wall ripens into an edible pericarp. The flowers of these plants have a superior ovary formed by the fusion of...
7-8 mm diameter containing numerous
seedA seed , referred to as a kernel in some plants, is a small embryonic plant enclosed in a covering called the seed coat, usually with some stored food. It is the product of the ripened ovule of gymnosperm and angiosperm plants which occurs after fertilization and some growth within the mother plant...
s.
Morrow's honeysuckle (
Lonicera morrowii) is a
deciduousDeciduous means falling off at maturity or tending to fall off and is typically used in reference to trees or shrubs that lose their leaves seasonally and to the shedding of other plant structures such as petals after flowering or fruit when ripe...
honeysuckleHoneysuckles are arching shrubs or twining vines in the family Caprifoliaceae, native to the Northern Hemisphere. There are about 180 species of honeysuckle, with by far the greatest diversity in China, where over 100 species occur; by comparison, Europe and North America have only about 20 native...
in the family
CaprifoliaceaeThe Caprifoliaceae or honeysuckle family is a clade consisting of about 800 dicotyledonous flowering plants, with a nearly cosmopolitan distribution; centres of diversity are found in eastern North America and eastern Asia, while they are absent in tropical and southern Africa.They are mostly...
, native to
Japanis an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
,
KoreaKorea is a civilization and formerly unified nation currently divided into two states. Located on the Korean Peninsula, it borders China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the east by the Korea Strait....
, and
ManchuriaManchuria is a historical name given to a vast geographic region in northeast Asia. Depending on the definition of its extent, Manchuria either falls entirely within China, or is divided between China and Russia...
. It is a
shrubA shrub or bush is a horticultural rather than strictly botanical category of woody plant, distinguished from a tree by its multiple stems and lower height, usually less than 5-6 m tall. A large number of plants can be either shrubs or trees, depending on the growing conditions they experience...
, reaching a height of 2-2.5 m, with oblong
leavesIn botany, a leaf is an above-ground plant organ specialized for photosynthesis. For this purpose, a leaf is typically flat and thin. There is continued debate about whether the flatness of leaves evolved to expose the chloroplasts to more light or to increase the absorption of carbon dioxide. In...
4-6 cm long. It leafs out quite early in the spring, and in North America is commonly the first deciduous shrub with foliage in March. The
flowerA flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to mediate the union of male sperm with female ovum in order to produce seeds...
s are white to pale yellow, and the
fruitThe term fruit has different meanings dependent on context, and the term is not synonymous in food preparation and biology. Fruits are the means by which flowering plants disseminate seeds, and the presence of seeds indicates that a structure is most likely a fruit, though not all seeds come from...
is a dark red
berryThe botanical definition of a berry is a simple fruit produced from a single ovary, such as a grape or a tomato. The berry is the most common type of fleshy fruit in which the entire ovary wall ripens into an edible pericarp. The flowers of these plants have a superior ovary formed by the fusion of...
7-8 mm diameter containing numerous
seedA seed , referred to as a kernel in some plants, is a small embryonic plant enclosed in a covering called the seed coat, usually with some stored food. It is the product of the ripened ovule of gymnosperm and angiosperm plants which occurs after fertilization and some growth within the mother plant...
s. The berries, while eaten frequently by birds, are considered poisonous to humans. It is colloquially called "bush honeysuckle" in the United States, and is considered an
invasive species'Invasive species' is a phrase with several definitions. The first definition expresses the phrase in terms of non-indigenous species that adversely affect the habitats they invade economically, environmentally or ecologically...
.
As an invasive species
Morrow's Honeysuckle is confirmed as a highly invasive species over the northeastern third of the United States. Morrow's Honeysuckle thrives at the edges of forests, roads, or other natural or man-made barriers, but is not limited to them, and is found in both mature and disturbed forests.. In some areas, Morrow's Honeysuckle is the dominant plant species, especially in areas of disturbed
ecological successionEcological succession, a fundamental concept in ecology, refers to the predictable and orderly changes in the composition or structure of an ecological community. Succession may be initiated either by formation of new, unoccupied habitat or by some form of disturbance of an existing community...
. It is suspected that
Lonicera morrowii is allelopathic, and may capitalize on disturbed ecological succession by establishing itself and then preventing the growth of plants underneath it. With a sufficiently established thicket of honeysuckle, even other shade-tolerant, invasive species, such as
Fortune's SpindleEuonymus fortunei, also commonly known as winter creeper or wintercreeper and Fortune's spindle is a species of Euonymus native to China, Korea and Japan....
have difficulty growing underneath it, whether due to its suspected allelopathic activity or through soil depletion.
Effects on flora and fauna
Due to its early leafing, Morrow's Honeysuckle is particularly harmful to spring ephemerals, flowers that evolved to bloom briefly in the spring before other plants leafed out.
Many
Cedar WaxwingThe Cedar Waxwing is a member of the family Bombycillidae or waxwing family of passerine birds. It breeds in open wooded areas in North America, principally southern Canada and the northern United States.-Description:...
s' wax spots in the eastern United States have taken on an unusual orange hue in the last 35 years, a phenomenon that has been attributed to
Lonicera morrowii. The chemical involved in this color change is
rhodoxanthinRhodoxanthin is a xanthophyll pigment with a purple color that is found in small quantities in a variety plants including Taxus baccata. It is also found in the feathers of some birds. As a food additive it is used under the E number E161f as a food coloring....
, a red dye found in the berries of Morrow's Honeysuckle.
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