Lonicera periclymenum
Credits
Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles
Recommended citation
'Lonicera periclymenum' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.
Genus
Common Names
- Woodbine
- Honeysuckle
Other taxa in genus
- Lonicera albertii
- Lonicera alpigena
- Lonicera alseuosmoides
- Lonicera altmannii
- Lonicera × americana
- Lonicera angustifolia
- Lonicera × brownii
- Lonicera caerulea
- Lonicera caprifolium
- Lonicera caucasica
- Lonicera chaetocarpa
- Lonicera chrysantha
- Lonicera ciliosa
- Lonicera deflexicalyx
- Lonicera dioica
- Lonicera etrusca
- Lonicera ferdinandii
- Lonicera flava
- Lonicera fragrantissima
- Lonicera giraldii
- Lonicera griffithii
- Lonicera gynochlamydea
- Lonicera × heckrottii
- Lonicera henryi
- Lonicera hildebrandiana
- Lonicera hirsuta
- Lonicera hispida
- Lonicera iberica
- Lonicera implexa
- Lonicera japonica
- Lonicera korolkowii
- Lonicera ledebourii
- Lonicera maackii
- Lonicera maximowiczii
- Lonicera microphylla
- Lonicera morrowii
- Lonicera myrtillus
- Lonicera nervosa
- Lonicera nigra
- Lonicera nitida
- Lonicera pileata
- Lonicera prolifera
- Lonicera prostrata
- Lonicera purpurascens
- Lonicera × purpusii
- Lonicera pyrenaica
- Lonicera quinquelocularis
- Lonicera rupicola
- Lonicera ruprechtiana
- Lonicera sempervirens
- Lonicera setifera
- Lonicera similis
- Lonicera splendida
- Lonicera standishii
- Lonicera syringantha
- Lonicera tangutica
- Lonicera tatarica
- Lonicera tatsienensis
- Lonicera × tellmanniana
- Lonicera thibetica
- Lonicera tomentella
- Lonicera tragophylla
- Lonicera trichosantha
- Lonicera xylosteum
- Lonicera yunnanensis
A twining shrub scrambling in the wild over bushes and hedgerows; stems often over 20 ft long, hollow when young, downy or glabrous. Leaves ovate, oval, or obovate, more or less tapered at the base, mostly pointed, sometimes blunt, 11⁄2 to 21⁄2 in. long. 1 to 11⁄2 in. wide, green above, rather glaucous beneath, slightly downy or glabrous, lower pairs of leaves stalked, uppermost ones almost or quite stalkless, but never united as in L. caprifolium. Flowers yellowish white and red in varying proportions, produced in a series of close whorls at the end of the shoot, forming a terminal stalked inflorescence. Corolla 11⁄2 to 2 in. long, two-lipped, the tube slender, tapering, glandular-downy outside. Berries red.
The common woodbine, best known of British species, reaches eastward to Asia Minor, the Caucasus, and W. Asia. No wild plant adds more to the charm of our hedgerows and thickets in July and August than this, especially in the cool dewy morning or evening when the fragrance of its blossoms is richest. Of several varieties, the following are the most noteworthy:
From the Supplement (Vol. V)
cv. ‘Belgica’. – In an interesting note, Kenneth Beckett remarks that about half the plants he has seen in gardens as ‘Belgica’ or ‘Serotina’, but especially the former, are actually L. × americana (The Garden (Journ. R.H.S.), Vol. 109, pp. 213–14(1984)).
† cv. ‘Graham Thomas’. – The original plant of this clone was found around 1960 in a Warwickshire hedgerow. It is exceptionally vigorous and if cut back in winter will flower from June to October.
cv. ‘Serotina’. – Plants now widely grown in Dutch nurseries are not the true clone, but derive from a wild plant found by a Dutch nurseryman in the 1960s on Texel in the Frisian islands. The merit of this usurper is said to be that it grows more freely than the usual commercial clone, although it is inferior in the colouring of the flowers. It appears too that the old ‘Serotina’ is now being marketed as ‘Florida’. We are indebted to Roy Lancaster for this information, which was given by the Dutch horticultural botanist Harry van de Laar. This false ‘Serotina’ is certainly being sold in Britain.
The fact that a passable imitation of the old ‘Serotina’ should have been collected in the wild in Holland suggests that both this and ‘Belgica’ belong to a wild-occurring race, since both came from the Low Countries in the 18th century.
'Belgica' Dutch Honeysuckle
Of more bushy habit; stems purplish and, like the leaves, glabrous. Flowers purplish red outside, fading to yellowish; yellow within. This honeysuckle probably originated in the Low Countries, and has been cultivated in Britain since the 17th century (Periclymenum germanicum Mill.; L. periclymenum var. belgica Ait.).'Cream of Assynt'
This cream and yellow selection was made by Robert Vernon of Bluebell Arboretum in 2010, on the banks of Loch a Choin, Assynt, in northwest Scotland. The plant was later destroyed by a moorland fire (interpretation board at Bluebell Arboretum, 2024).
f. quercina (West.) Rehd
Leaves lobed after the fashion of those of the common oak. Occasionally found in the wild and first recorded in Britain in the 17th century.'Serotina'
The plant known to Philip Miller as the Flemish or Late Red honeysuckle bore its flowers late in the summer in ‘close bunches’ over a period of not much more than a fortnight, during which time they made a finer display than the Dutch variety (Gard. Dict., abridged edition, Vol. 1 (1737)). He called it ‘Caprifolium Germanicum, flore rubello, serotinum’ (Caprifolium being an old generic name, used for the common woodbine as well as for L. caprifolium). The honeysuckle known at the present time as ‘Serotina’ has the flowers dark purple outside, becoming paler with age, and flowers over a long period in summer. It is, in other words, long-rather than late-flowering, and indeed it has also been known as L. periclymenum semperflorens. It is very doubtful whether this is really the true ‘Serotina’. It is possibly the same as Miller’s ‘long blowing’ form of the Dutch honeysuckle, which Weston listed as a variety distinct from the Dutch and the late-flowering sort, under the name ‘Lonicera-Periclymenum longiflorens (Flora Anglicana (1775), p. 21).'Sweet Sue'
A very fine selection with strongly scented cream and yellow flowers made by Roy Lancaster on a Swedish beach and named after his wife – a most apt commemoration (Edwards & Marshall 2019).
