Japanese Honeysuckle is in Family Caprifoliaceae s.s. (or subfamily Caprifolioideae in the loosely defined Caprifoliaceae s.l.).
From China and parts of Asia it is present in S.E. Queensland.
Originally a garden plant they are now an invasive environmental weed.
The woody vines or lianas can grow as a ground cover or scramble over other vegetation.
Prostrate branching stems can form dense mats on the ground.
They climb using twining stems that can be over 10 m long.
Rapid growers they can soon smother other vegetation.
Young green stems may be red on the upper surface.
Older stems are brown and woody.
Stems touching the ground can root at the nodes and each node can produce another plant.
Many parts, including young stems have dense simple and glandular hairs.
The opposite pairs of leaves are on a petiole up to 1 cm long.
There is often a ridge on the stem between the petiole bases.
Petioles have simple and glandular hairs mainly when young.
The largest blades are around 8 cm long and 4 cm wide.
They can be oblong, ovate or elliptical with a blunt or pointed tip.
Some have a mucro (short abrupt point) at the tip or an asymmetric base.
Young leaves may have teeth or lobes but adult leaves have smooth edges.
Young leaves often have simple &/or glandular hairs mainly on the lower surface.
There are tiny cilia on the edges.
Some species are deciduous or semi-deciduous.
Inflorescences are a pair of flowers in the leaf axils near the branch ends.
Peduncles can be a absent or a few mms long near the branch ends and up to 3 (5) cm further down the stem.
They have dense long and short simple hairs as well as glandular ones.
Peduncles have a pair of leaf-like bracts up to around 2 cm long.
The tiny pedicel has a pair of 1 mm bracteoles with dense cilia and long hairs.
The calyx has a short tube with five 1 mm pointed lobes.
There are dense hairs mainly on the edge.
The corolla has a narrow tubular or funnel-shaped base up to 2 to 3 cm long.
The 5 lobes are in 2 lips forming a bilabiate corolla.
A wide upper lip is irregularly divided into 4 lobes for around half its length.
The upper lip is erect and the single lower lip curves down.
There are simple and glandular hairs on the outer surface and simple ones inside.
The corolla is white and may have pink or purple tints on the outer surface.
It becomes a pale then deep yellow as it ages.
Running down the inside of the tube near the base is a yellow strip.
Along it are stalkless nectary glands with occasional glandular hairs.
The 5 unequal stamens insert onto the corolla tube at slightly different levels.
White filaments hold dorsifixed anthers that open through long slits.
The superior ovary has 3 locules each with 2 or 3 ovules.
The long smooth style has a green disc-shaped stigma.
Fruit are a shiny black berry up to 1 cm long with the calyx attached.
There are other honeysuckle species available as well as some cultivars.
J.F.
