Japanese Honeysuckle
Scientific name: Lonicera japonica Thunb Common name: Japanese Honeysuckle Native to: japan and korea Description: Japanese honeysuckle is a vine that climbs by twisting its stems around vertical structures like shrubs and small trees.
Life cycle:
- Seedlings take three to five years to mature into a plant capable of producing flowers. At first they grow slowly, and are very temperature/environment sensative
- Japanese honeysuckle can also reproduce by layering, which is when a node on a vine touches the ground and takes root, creating a new plant.
- Fully grown Honeysuckles can become up to 30-foot-long vines that climb trees and other structures for support. Distribution: Japanese honeysuckle is found all across the southern U.S. and has even gone as far as the northeastern US and the Great Lakes region. A small population of the vine is also found in Hawaii.
How was it brought to the US?
- Japanese honeysuckle was introduced to the U.S. in the early 1800’s as an ornamental plant, for erosion control, and for wildlife forage and cover.
Economic impact:
- It interferes with forestry indusrty and fruit industries, causing damage to the farms and orchards by smothers plants and trees that it takes root on, This damages the population of existing plants witch can now not naturally reproduce
Efforts to control species:
- Burning method- intentionally causing a fire to try and burn all of the honeysuckle of native plants
- Chemical control- spraying herbicides and other chemicals to try and weaken/ kill off the plant
- Biological control- introducing natural predators to get rid of plant
- So far none of these has been extremely effective due to the hazards the possess to natural organisms or the sheer amount of honeysuckle already in the US