Tartarian honeysuckle

Great Plains

Midwest

FACU - Facultative upland

Northcentral & Northeast

FACU - Facultative upland

Native to eastern Europe and Asia. Introduced and naturalized into the United States and Canada.

Common

Deciduous woodland borders, thickets, fence rows, disturbed areas. Full sun to partial shade.

May to June

Pinkish white

3′ to 10′

This is an erect, 3′ to 10′ tall, perennial shrub that rises from shallow roots. It sometimes forms dense thickets.

The branches are straight and hollow. They are light green and covered with soft, fine, short hairs when young. Older branches have shaggy, grayish-brown bark.

The leaves are opposite, untoothed, egg-shaped to oblong, widest below the middle, and 1⅛″ to 2⅓″ long. They are bluish-green on the upper surface. The lower surface is hairless.

The flowers occur in pairs arising from leaf axils. They are pinkish white and do not turn yellow with age.

The infructescence is a pair of red or orange berries.

All native honeysuckles are vine-like, not shrubs, and have twining branches.

Morrow’s honeysuckle (Lonicera morrowii), another non-native species, has white flowers that turn yellow with age. The underside of the leaf is densely hairy. The fruit is always red, never orange.

Honeysuckle aphid (Hyadaphis tataricae) causes a witches’ broom of stunted leaf and stem growth at the end of shoots.

Plant

Inflorescence

Flowers

Red Fruit

Orange Fruit