Family: Caprifoliaceae

Status:

Description:
A large climber with twining stems and oval, thin-textured leaves in opposite pairs. Young leaves are lobed. Flowers are long-tubular, very sweet-scented, and white aging to yellow. Fruit is a black berry.

Preferred habitat and impacts:
Found along forest edges and river banks, usually close to towns or old farms. It tolerates both sun and shade, but prefers moist soils.
A very robust climber, honeysuckle is capable of smothering trees and shrubs, as well as groundcover vegetation over a large area.
The berries are poisonous.

Dispersal:
Seed is spread by birds, or in dumped garden refuse or contaminated soil. Branches will take root where they come in contact with the soil. Dumping can spread the plant vegetatively.

Look-alikes:
Other Lonicera species (vines and shrubs) and hybrids of Japanese honeysuckle are sold by nurseries. All have bird-distributed fruits and should be avoided.
No similar natives.

Control
Hand-pull or dig young plants, scrape and paint old stems. Spray with selective or non-selective herbicides.
When removing any species of vines, be careful about pulling them down, as this can damage the supporting plant. Generally they are better left to die off and break up in place, unless this would involve leaving a lot of seed in the canopy. Try to control vines before seed has formed to avoid this problem.