Lonicera japonica Thunb.                           var. halliana Nichols                                                                          Caprifoliaceae    Honeysuckle Family                                                              East Asia   Japanese Honeysuckle

                                             June Photo

Plant Characteristics:  Half-evergreen climber to 20 or even 30 ft., with hollow twining sts., branchlets usually hairy when young; lvs. opposite, ovate or oblong, 1.5-3.5 in. long, acute or obtuse and apiculate, pubescent, becoming glabrous above; fls. pure white, changing to yellow, fragrant, produced all summer, in axillary pairs on young shoots often much crowded toward the ends; peduncles short bearing 2 ovate bracts .5-.75 in. long; bractlets 4, half to as long as the ovary; corolla 1.25-1.5 in. long, pubescent, the tube slender, the limb 2-lipped; stamens 5, inserted on the corolla tube; style 1, which, with the stamens protrudes from the corolla tube; fr. black, .25 in. in dia., distinct.

Habitat:  Evergreen vine, partly or wholly deciduous in coldest regions.  Late spring, summer bloom.  (Sunset Editors 356).

Name:  Lonic-era, after Adam Lonicer or Lonitzer, 1528-1586, German physician and naturalist.  (Bailey 940).  Japonica, Japanese (Bailey 16).  Halliana, may be after Dr. Harvey Monroe Hall, 1874-1932, American botanist long connected with the University of California and later with the Carnegie Institution (1919-1932), special interests: the taxonomy of plants of the genus Artemisia and experimental taxonomy and ecology.  (Jaeger 309).

General:  Becoming occasional in the study area where it has been found several times.  Where it occurs it becomes an invasive, aggressive plant that threatens to choke out the plants it has climbed upon.  In Big Canyon where I first found this species in 1990, the area to which the vine has spread is about an acre in size with a very heavy infestation near Back Bay Dr. and the wooden bridge crossing into the canyon from Back Bay Dr.  In 2002, as a member of the Upper Bay Naturalists Revegetation Committee, I cut the vines in Big Canyon in an attempt to kill the plants.  I later sprayed herbicide on the new growth coming from the root systems. It remains to be seen as to how effective the effort has been.  Also found below the intersection of Eastbluff Dr. with Back Bay Dr. where there are at least two colonies.  (my comments).       About 180 species throughout the Northern Hemisphere in America south to Mex. and in Asia south to Java.  (Bailey 940).  Listed in the 1993 Jepson Manual only as L. japonica.  (Hickman, Ed. 474).  Bailey lists four vars. of  L. japonica and since this is a cultivated plant I will use him as the authority and keep var. halliana.  (my comment).

Text Ref:  Bailey 942; Hickman, Ed. 474; Robbins et al. 412; Roberts 17.

Photo Ref:  June 90 # 3A,4A.

Identity: by R. De Ruff, confirmed by John Johnson.  

Computer Ref:  Plant Data 401.

Have plant specimen.

Last edit 11/16/02.

                                                June Photo