Grape Honeysuckle - by Diane Porter
Grape Honeysuckle (Lonicera reticulata) has been here “forever.” It’s native to the Midwest. It’s a gangling vine, climbing taller than I am.
Grape Honeysuckle leaves grow in twos. At the lower end of a stem, a pair of leaves has space between them. At the top end of the stem, a pair of leaves grows together like an old married couple. Only the notches in the edge suggest that they are really two conjoined leaves.
Flowers grow right out of the middle of what looks like one leaf.
The flowers look luscious as French vanilla ice cream, served on a green plate.
Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, Clearwing Moths, and bumblebees probe the blossoms to get the nectar, and that pollinates the honeysuckle.
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The leaves of Grape Honeysuckle feed the caterpillars of poetically-names moths — Snowberry Clearwing, Six-Plume Moth, Gray Scoopwing, Brown-Lined Sallow, Honeysuckle Moth. The caterpillars are soft, nutritious food, ready for parent birds to serve to their nestlings.
This bounty of caterpillars makes native honeysuckle valuable to birds.
After the yellow petals fall, berries begin to form.
In fall, birds eat the red berries and then “plant” the seeds, once their digestive system is finished with them.
A few of the many woodland birds who eat honeysuckle berries are Brown Thrasher, Gray Catbird, and the Veery.
These are the bad guys.
An invasive, non-native honeysuckle that crowds Iowa parks and wild areas is Amur Honeysuckle, which comes from eastern Asia. Unfortunately, it’s the honeysuckle we’re most likely to encounter outdoors in Iowa. It spreads like crazy and crowds out native species.
The leaves of non-native species of honeysuckles are not edible to native caterpillars and therefore do not support the food chain here. If you want more birds in your backyard, replace these guys. Plant native!
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