Plants→Honeysuckles→Fly Honeysuckle (Lonicera canadensis)

Unfortunately, I have never seen this native shrub in the wild that grows from southern Ontario & Quebec to Nova Scotia, in most of New England, New York, and Pennsylvania, down the Appalachians almost to Georgia, northeast Ohio, most of Michigan, northwest Indiana, and northern Wisconsin & Minnesota. It grows in bogs, swamps, dry woods, and in cool deep moist woods. It likes stony or sandy or silt or clay loam soils with pH 6 to 8.5. Less common in pure clay soils. It grows fast and has a fibrous, shallow, spreading root system like other honeysuckle shrubs. It is very tolerant of shade. Its opposite leaves are supposed to be fringed with hairs and only turn a greenish-yellow in the fall, dropping in late November. The tubular bell-like trumpet flowers come in nodding pairs, get about 3/4 inch long, and are cream-colored to pale yellow to orange in May and are slightly fragrant. My plant that first bloomed showed creamy flowers with a blush of pink. The egg-shaped berries about 1/4 inch long are light red in July-August and are supposed to be edible to humans, besides birds and small mammals. Resistant to heat, drought, and salt. A very few native plant nurseries grow this species. I just bought three saplings from Reeseville Ridge Nursery in central Wisconsin by mail, planted them in pots, and look forward to their future. I love rare American native plants. (The similar European Fly Honeysuckle of Lonicera xylosteum has two dwarf cultivars occasionally used by professional landscapers being "Claveyi' and 'Emerald Mound.')

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