Medicinal Monday - Wild about Wild Honeysuckle

Limber Honeysuckle or Lonicera dioica L, is a low growing vine-like shrub that is native to Connecticut, Canada and the central and eastern part of the United States. This beautiful vine is attractive to hummingbirds and has some interesting medicinal uses that are practiced by Native Americans.

About
Limber honeysuckle is a woody, loosely twining perennial vine that sprawls or climbs on nearby vegetation.  It grows in coniferous and deciduous woods and thickets, often in sandy or rocky ground. It is also found in moist areas and bogs.  Red, tubular flowers with yellow stamens are arranged in whorls at the end of branches. Flowers are one-half to one inch long, with a long, slender tube shape consisting of two lips with five pale hairy stamens with a dome-shaped stigma at the tip. 

Simple opposite pinnately veined green leaves with white undersides are on the branches of this plant. Leaves directly below flowers are fused together like a cup. Young stems have a waxy, bluish-white (glaucous) coating; older woody stems brown or grayish, with shredding bark. The fruit is round to oval, bright red to orange-red berries are ¼ to ½ inch long and grow in clusters surrounded by joined upper leaves. There are three to eight ovoid yellow seeds in each berry. This plant flowers in Connecticut from May - June.

Medicinal
Lonicera dioica was used by the Algonquin, Chippawa, and Meskwaki to treat fever, tuberculosis, menstrual difficulties, kidney stones, dysuria, venereal disease, and worms. It was also used as a cathartic and diuretic. The Iroquois made a decoction of the vines and used it as an emetic “to throw off effects of love medicine.” The berries may cause mild to moderate nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea.

Did You Know?
Other common names for Limber Honeysuckle include Mountain Honeysuckle, Red Honeysuckle, and Smooth leaved Honeysuckle.

The name Lonicera pays tribute to the 16th-century German botanist Adam Lonicer.  Dioica means “two houses,” and comes from an initial mistake by Linnaeus, who thought the plant was dioecious. The term honeysuckle comes from the honey or nectar that can be easily sucked from the flower.

Darwin noted that all members of the genus Lonicera climb with the apical stem, which moves dextrally (left to right) or, as Darwin referred to it, “with the sun.”

Seeds from this plant remain viable after being stored in sealed containers at low temperatures for 15 years.