Americanized Tartarian Honeysuckle Gardens Toughen Tough Non-Natives

Summary: Americanized Tartarian honeysuckle gardens handle tough allelopathy, cold, flood, heat, light and shade that harm North America's native honeysuckles.

garden with Tartarian honeysuckle (Lonicera tatarica); southeastern Michigan; May 18, 2015: F.D. Richards, CC BY SA 2.0, via Flickr

Americanized Tartarian honeysuckle gardens aggravate master arborists, master gardeners, master naturalists and tree stewards since Amur, Japanese, Morrow's and Tartarian honeysuckles assume landscape dominance through presumed allelopathic effects and prolific seed production.

Tartarian honeysuckle, nicknamed bush honeysuckle and fly honeysuckle, behaves like allelopathic plants that botch all, most or some nearby native, non-native, non-woody or woody vegetation's growth. Abundant seed production, fast germination rates and protracted in-soil viability cause non-native Amur, Japanese, Morrow's and Tartarian honeysuckle to conquer Canada, Mexico and the United States. No federal, provincial or territorial legislation designates Central Asia's and south Russia's Tartarian honeysuckle, Japan's Japanese and Morrow's honeysuckles and northeast Asia's Amur honeysuckle as weeds.

Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont enact state legislation against Amur, Japanese, Morrow's and Tartarian honeysuckles while New Hampshire's legislation excludes only Amur honeysuckle from official weed status.

Tartarian honeysuckle, described in 1753 by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus (May 23, 1707-Jan. 10, 1778), fits oval to round embryonic leaves, called cotyledons, onto seedling stems.

The first leaf stage gives Tartarian honeysuckle, scientifically named Lonicera tatarica (Tatar's honeysuckle), elliptical to oval foliage with hairy, smooth margins and opposite arrangements around stalks. Mature, 0.79- to 2.56-inch- (2- to 6.5-centimeter-) long, 0.39- to 1.58-inch- (1- to 4-centimeter-) wide foliage has heart-shaped bases, oblong to oval shapes and smooth margins. It inclines from 0.04- to 0.32-inch- (1- to 8-millimeter-) long stems on green, smooth, young branches and brown to brown-gray old.

Americanized Tartarian honeysuckle gardens jumble the blue-green foliage of Morrow's honeysuckle, the gray-brown, scaly bark of Amur honeysuckle and the trailing, twining vines of Japanese honeysuckle.

The woody ornamental member in the Caprifoliaceae family of honeysuckle shrubs and vines keeps color, size and texture contrasts high during leafing, flowering, fruiting and seeding. Hollow, 3.28- to 16.4-foot- (1- to 5-meter-) tall shrubs look fetching with perfect, pink, red, regular, tube-shaped, white, 0.59- to 0.98-inch- (15- to 25-millimeter-) long flowers. May bloom times manage space-sharing arrangements, with two flowers per fragrant inflorescence, called a cyme, whose oldest flowers mound its tips, mustered forth from leaf axils. Cymes nurse triangular, 0.12- to 0.32-inch- (3- to 8-millimeter-) long, 0.39-inch- (1-millimeter-) wide modified leaves, called bracts, atop 0.59- to 0.98-inch- (1.5- to 2.5-centimeter-) long stalks.

Americanized Tartarian honeysuckle gardens offer one pistil, four stamens on five petals and five sepals on variable-blooming Tartarian honeysuckle and white-blooming Amur, Japanese and Morrow's honeysuckles.

Orange, red or yellow, two- to eight-seeded berries, 0.19 to 0.32 inches (5 to 8 millimeters) in diameter, present flattened, glabrous, orange-red or yellow oval seeds.

Soil temperatures between 59 and 77 degrees Fahrenheit (15 and 25 degrees Celsius) quicken germination of 0.09- to 0.14-inch- (2.5- to 3.5-millimeter-) long Tartarian honeysuckle seeds. Amur, Japanese, Morrow's and five-year viable, 0.079- to 0.098-inch- (2- to 2.5-millimeter-) wide Tartarian honeysuckle seeds retain faster germination and longer viability than their native counterparts. Mature non-native honeysuckles stay sturdy as seeds since they survive temperatures between minus 72.4 and plus 104 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 58 and plus 40 degrees Celsius).

Allelopathic, cold, flood, heat, light and shade extremes take down native honeysuckles but toughen non-native Amur, Japanese, Morrow's and Tartarian honeysuckles in Americanized Tartarian honeysuckle gardens.

Tartarian honeysuckle's flowers and leaves: Leslie J. Mehrhoff, University of Connecticut, Bugwood.org, CC BY 3.0, via Forestry Images

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

garden with Tartarian honeysuckle (Lonicera tatarica); southeastern Michigan; May 18, 2015: F.D. Richards, CC BY SA 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/50697352@N00/17291209963/

Tartarian honeysuckle's flowers and leaves: Leslie J. Mehrhoff, University of Connecticut, Bugwood.org, CC BY 3.0, via Forestry Images @ http://www.forestryimages.org/browse/detail.cfm?imgnum=5448033

For further information:

Dickinson, Richard; and Royer, France. 2014. Weeds of North America. Chicago IL; London, England: The University of Chicago Press.

Linnaeus, Carl. 1753. "5. Lonicera tatarica." Species Plantarum, vol. I: 173-174. Holmiae [Stockholm, Sweden]: Laurentii Salvii [Laurentius Salvius].
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/358192

"Lonicera tatarica L." Tropicos® > Name Search.
Available @ http://www.tropicos.org/Name/6000144

Weakley, Alan S.; Ludwig, J. Christopher; and Townsend, John F. 2012. Flora of Virginia. Edited by Bland Crowder. Fort Worth TX: BRIT Press, Botanical Research Institute of Texas.