Northern bush honeysuckle

Prepared by Jennifer L. D’Appollonio, Assistant Scientist, University of Maine, Orono, ME 04469. Updated April 2019.

Scientific name: Diervilla lonicera P. Mill.; also Diervilla diervilla (L.) MacM.

Common name(s): northern bush honeysuckle, bush honeysuckle, low bush honeysuckle, dwarf bush honeysuckle, life-of-man, yellow flowered upright honeysuckle, diervilla

Links: USDA PLANTS Profile, NPIN Profile, Go Botany

Images: (to see enlargements [PC]: click on image, then right click and choose “view image”)

Description:

– generally flowers June, July in ME

-Bush

-reaches 2′-4′ tall,

-twigs with four densely hairy ridges when young,

-oblong, opposite leaves oval at base and tapering at the tip

  • toothed and pointed at the end with short leaf stock

-Flowers yellow and funnel-shaped

  • grow in twos or threes at tips of stems
  • 3/4″ long with protruding stamens.

-a good substitute instead of planting the nonnative invasive honeysuckle

Wildlife Benefits:

-provides winter and summer browse for deer and moose

Habitat:

-alpine zones

-disturbed sites

-forest edges

-grasslands

 

Source(s):

Hansen, R.W., S.B. Hansen and E.A. Osgood. 1991. Reproductive phenologies of selected flowering plants in eastern Maine forests. ME Agric. Exp. Station Tech. Bull. 143. 17 pp.

Heinrich, B. 1976. Flowering phenologies: Bog, woodland, and disturbed habitats. Ecology. 57(5):890-899.

Go Botany. “Diervilla Lonicera P. Mill.” Diervilla Lonicera (Bush-Honeysuckle): Go Botany, 2021, gobotany.nativeplanttrust.org/species/diervilla/lonicera/.