Anyone have any experience with Himalayan Honeysuckle (Leycesteria formosa)? Its a shrubby honeysuckle that produces little berries that are edible (and supposedly tasty but its more of an ornamental). I have some seeds sprouting (an actually successful tiny seed sprout), and it was just curious if its made its way into anyone elses yard.
Not sure how its going to do with our heat and humidity, but I am always down to experiment.
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I had it maybe 30 years ago, not a success for me. I donāt think it liked eastern KS climate, not happy looking and died during the growing season.
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Iāve seen them a number of times, but never been able to bring myself to taste the berries cause in my head they somehow donāt appear as āedibleā despite people saying they are. I would absolutely love it if they are delicious, but I canāt recall anyone ever claiming them to be much more than edible. They arenāt quite beautiful enough to be planted for their looks and are too big to be worth their space unless they actually taste good enough to motivate me to pick themā¦
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Here is one I spotted nearby a couple of months ago. Iām not 100% sure because its about 20 feet back from the road so I canāt see it close up.
I did consider climbing through the brambles to get a closer look but didnāt want to look like a complete madman. They do really well in the UK. This one probably grew from bird droppings.
Iāve read conflicting reports on whether these are okay for consumption. Some places say the berries are mildly toxic. I havenāt been brave enough to buy a plant yet because of that reason. Weird explorer says they are quite tasty though, with a coffee flavour.
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I tend to think Weird Explorer takes an optimistic approach to just about everything (which I appreciate), but canāt quite count on his experiences matching my own for things Iāve personally tasted.
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Plants for a future has this to say:
Fruit? - one unconfirmed report said that the fruit is edible. In the better forms, the fully ripe and very soft fruit is very sweet with a treacle-like flavour, though in other forms it has a very bitter taste and is not very desirable
If this is the case then itās a shame that no one seems to be offering clonal selections confirmed to be chosen for flavor. The only named selection Iāve seen is one selected for golden foliage and then the rest are just generic green leaf form.
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I just checked iNaturalist and there are currently 1,730 observations of it occurring in New Zealand despite not being native there. The situation appears to be even worse in western Europe. Looks like it can be HIGHLY invasive where happy.
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Definitely a shame. It does sound like it has a lot of potential to be really quite nice with a bit of selective breeding.
Yes, when I was toying with the idea of buying one not long ago, I found the yellow form (āGolden Lanternsā) to be quite common, and a dwarf form āLittle Lanternsā is available too. There is also āPurple Rainā (not sure whatās special about it, can only assume itās to do with the colourful bracts). No idea how different or pleasant these berries are compared to wild ones. They only seem to be bred for ornamental purposes so fruit quality is probably lacking.
I came across this Himalayan honeysuckle fig roll recipe last time I was searching about the plant. Fergus says that āthe fully ripened fruit are faintly figgy in flavour with hints of bitter chocolate and burnt caramelā. Sounds quite good to me!
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The seeds I got are supposed to have a yellow foliage, but theres no garentee (although the little seedlings do look yellowish). If I can get a bunch to grow and fruit, maybe Iāll start my own selective breeding program for taste. They arenāt a plant from a hot humid area, so Iām pretty interested in seeing how they will do here. I am also kind of banking on that and their need to cold stratify (from what I read) to stop them from taking over my property.
Now I got an episode to watch. I didnāt know he had a tasting of this already. All the flavors that Iāve seen of it described (chocolately, caramally, coffeey) are flavors I like and would be interested in adding to my selection, so I am pretty excited. Hopefully I wonāt be let down.
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Donāt count on it. They seem to have proliferated just as well on the northern sub-tropic side of New Zealand as on the temperate southern side.
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If this plant is anything like Himalayan blackberry, it shouldnāt be propagated under any circumstances.
Fortunately itās a shrub and not a thorny thicket forming vine, so itās unlikely to create huge monocultures like the blackberries can. Still, people should weigh the risk of invasiveness against whether the fruit is actually good enough to justify the burden of managing it as a naturalized population.
Himalayan blackberry is certainly a special kind of bad. Still though, I think itās very ignorant to introduce a known invasive species and hope it can be managed. I doubt thereās much chance that the benefits outweigh the risk.
This is not a conversation about whether it should be introduced. That ship has already sailed. Itās about whether or not people who donāt already have it in their gardens should try it (in regions where it already exists and is available to gardeners). Unless Iām mistaken, no one here is expressing a desire to import it into a region where it is not yet already grown.
On a side tangent (which I hope doesnāt offend you) I find the phrasing āhope it can be managedā to be strange. One either manages an invasive species or one doesnāt. Thereās no reason to āhope it can be managed.ā Weāre talking about management, not eradication. You may not be able to eradicate it, but any efforts for control do qualify as management, so unless you want to redefine what it means to manage something then yes, it can be managed if people chose to do so.
For the sake of perspective. Apple trees are highly invasive in my region. Everywhere I go I see feral specimens along the roads and in the woods. They even hybridize with our native crabapples. However, they donāt have a net negative effect on the environment nor do they greatly bother people so we donāt worry about them. Himalayan blackberries actually spread extra well because native birds love the fruit and spread the seeds around which when added to their ability to spread clonally made them get out of hand fast. We worry about them because they can swallow up giant swaths of land and are difficult to remove. Himalayan honeysuckle isnāt showing that pattern in areas where itās invasive. Itās more like the apple trees where they show up here and there, but are not smothering whole native plant communities. One of the problems with the term āinvasiveā is that it encompasses species which cause massive issues as well as ones which have little negative impact beyond simply having self perpetuating populations where they are not native.
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Your comments were my basis for thinking that itās quite an aggressive invasive species. Admittedly Iām not familiar with the plant myself. For the worst invasive species, a lot of money and effort is put into controlling them in regions where theyāre already established. So if this is a bad one, it does seem silly to keep planting them. Youāre right that the āintroducedā wording was poorly chosen.
Fair. To be more clear, I meant āhope that it can be prevented from escaping the yard and colonizing the neighborhood and surrounding forest.ā I get that itās already present in the region, but to me this seems like adding fuel to the fire.
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For the record, I see no reason to think it would be invasive here in Florida. While I think/hope my plants will do fine as we head into winter, it is not really a hot weather plant. The places where it is seen most (in cultivation and wild as an invasive) are areas like the PNW or UK that are damp but not stifflingly humid and cool most of the year (at least compared to us). Even subtropical NZ is significently milder in the summer.
Survival is definitely a bigger concern for me than it breaking containment. CFL can be brutal on plants.
Watched the episode. Apperently they have to be ripened to the point they are basically pudding. The bract he had wasnāt all ripe at once, but hopefully it can hang on the plant and have them all ripen up more consistently. I watched someone else taste it and they said it was more chocolately. I wonder if different plants have different tastes, or if its just a variance of how people describe flavor.
The bracts and flowers are beautiful, and my seeds are supposed to be from the yellow leafed variety (although it was unconfirmed if that breeds true, and Iāll still have to wait a couple weeks to confirm with my own seedlings), so they should be a fairly attractive bush.
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I suspect at least some seedlings might come true with the golden color, especially since it seems they can set fruit with self-pollination. The biggest challenge to selecting for fruit quality will probably be lack of genetic diversity to select within. Nevertheless, a genetic bottle neck can sometimes lead to new traits proliferating as well since any new mutation can quickly become dominant within a population and create genetic drift away from the characteristics of the original source population.
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I dont live within its native range, so Im not inclined to grow it due to the risk of it becoming invasive in this area.