Northern Ontario Plant Database

Plant Description

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Lonicera hirsuta Eaton

En: hairy honeysuckle
Fr: chèvrefeuille hirsute

Caprifoliaceae (Honeysuckle Family)

General: A perennial, trailing or climbing, deciduous vine to 3 m long. Young stems green to purplish, glandular-hairy; older stems brown or grayish, woody, with shredding bark.

Leaves: Opposite, simple, pinnately-veined, sessile or short petiolate. Leaf blades broadly elliptic to ovate, 5–13 cm long, 2.5–9 cm wide; upper surface dark green, dull, coarse-textured and slightly hairy; lower surface paler and hairy; leaf base rounded or tapering (cuneate), upper 1–2 leaves fused at their bases (connate-perfoliate); apex blunt (obtuse) to pointed (acute); margins entire and fringed with hairs (ciliate).

Flowers: Bisexual, several in a terminal stalked cluster (short spike), subtended by a pair of rounded bracts, fused at the base (connate-perfoliate) and with abruptly pointed tips. Calyx minute; corolla tubular, yellow to orange, to 2.5 cm long; with 5 oblong lobes, 3 fused into an upper lip, 2 fused into a lower lip; stamens 5, attached to the inside of the corolla; the single pistil with an inferior ovary. Flowers bloom in early summer.

Fruit: A cluster of ovoid, smooth, orange to red, sessile berries; subtended by a pair of saucer-shaped (convex), connate-perfoliate bracts. Fruits mature in late summer to autumn.

Habitat and Range: A variety of dry to moist habitats, including rocky woods, slopes, thickets, mixedwood forests and clearings, and often along calcareous shores. The hairy honeysuckle is native to north-central North America. In Ontario, it occurs as far north as the mouth of the Moose River, James Bay (Soper & Heimburger 1982).

Internet Images: The Lonicera hirsuta webpage from Wisconsin State Herbarium's Vascular Plant Species Database.

The Lonicera hirsuta webpage from Andy Fyon's Northern Ontario Wildflowers website.

Similar Species: The only other climbing honeysuckle in Ontario is Lonicera dioica, the glaucous or twining honeysuckle, which has smooth (glabrous) leaves. The lower leaf surfaces and herbaceous stems usually have a waxy, bluish (glaucous) coating, but some plants have leaves with a hairy lower surface. Blades of the upper 1-4 pairs of opposite leaves range from triangular-ovate to narrowly elliptic with fused (connate-perfoliate) bases; lower leaves have short petioles; apices are blunt (obtuse) to rounded; margins are entire and smooth, not ciliate. Compare Lonicera hirsuta to the Lonicera dioica webpage from the Gallery of Connecticut Wildflowers, a website of the Connecticut Botanical Society.

Lonicera chart I: Native climbing or trailing vines with a terminal cluster of flowers and fruits

	Lonicera hirsuta (hairy honeysuckle)	Lonicera dioica (glaucous honeysuckle)
leaf shape	broadly elliptic to ovate	narrowly elliptic
leaf surface	hairy	smooth, usually glaucous beneath
leaf apex	acute to blunt	blunt to rounded
leaf base	rounded or tapering, upper 1–2 leaves connate-perfoliate	tapering, upper 1–4 leaves connate-perfoliate
leaf margins	ciliate	entire
fruit	a cluster of ovoid orange to red berries, subtended by a pair of connate-perfoliate bracts

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