Just have to learn how to make lemonade out of lemons…er, that is make honey out of honeysuckle.
The early spring honey crop from the bush honeysuckles can be some really pretty stuff…you can read a paper through a 1# jar of honey. (You need strong hives coming out of winter, with supers added early…and hope you don’t get dandelion or redbud honey mixed with it.)
My wife and I got engaged just north of you on the Hadlock Brook trail! Also we are from PA and hope to move to Maine in the future as well. Small world! I will have to keep a lookout for and get better at identifying all the different berries you guys have discussed. I usually stick to wild blueberries when I’m up there but clearly need to expand my taste testing!
Any particular areas near Blue Hill that you/your friend would suggest looking that would be public? Growing up we used to go to the Blue Hill airport to pick wild blueberries and (probably) some other huckleberry or something else that is a much darker berry but is more of a high bush growth habit. These days we try to get out to the local trails when in town (Kingdom Road conservation area, Peter’s Brook, Barred Island etc) but I think the only berries I have recognized are winterberry, blueberry, and cranberries. Also, another small world moment! Maine is awesome.
There is a UMO professor who is very interested in our native mountain fly honeysuckle- l villosa- can’t recall his name offhand tho
I remember her saying it was just about everywhere. The time to look out for it would be early spring when you get the yellow flowers. The bushes are also much shorter than what I picture.
Yeah, I miss Downeast Maine. It didn’t work out career wise for me to stay there, but I am happy that I live close enough to visit friends there once or twice a year. The berry abundance is amazing. I bet the darker blueberry-like fruit you gathered is wild Aronia. I used to think those were blueberries until I knew better, and there are tons of them around that neck of the woods.
Hmmm…this is a new one to me as well. I’ll keep an eye out this next spring here in the midcoast for sure. The discription has me thinking I may want to trial it as an orchard companion.
I think I know where it is growing,
I Did forget about that one I remember reading of the different species on Pfaf (plants for a future) over 10 years ago
we also have L. canadensis Fly Honeysuckle
See maps for L. villosa Mountain fly honeysuckle
(I have not browsed this map,
but have used it for pawpaw in parks when I planned a trip in Florida,
but plans changed in Florida)
mountain fly honeysuckle - Encyclopedia of Life (eol.org)
browse down, and more species listed like Lonicera villosa
Lonicera canadensis Fly Honeysuckle, American fly honeysuckle PFAF Plant Database
I also was just reading about the invasive Japanese ones
I read you can gather the flowers, and make honey suckle honey by soaking in sugar I’d imagine placing a tarp under, and thrash the highly invasive bushes to drop flowers then kill the invasive bushes.
I kill plenty of those Japanese ones as well
I am disappointed the parks wait till after they fruit to kill them b/c they say they do not want herbicide drift since these keep leaves longer after the native plant leaves fall thus letting the seeds spread even more, and wasting more tax payer money controlling them, but that is another subject.
I know these are in the caprifoliaceae family along with Elderberries beauty bush, snow berry , and others I wonder if they could hybridize by traditional means.
(edit I also use Department of natural resource DNR sometimes to see parks with species , and use the search engine I did not see anything for Maine, but barley looked, and not familiar with the site as far as Maine goes)
This site MN wild flowers seems to have good pictures as well
(note cal photos is another good site I used to use a lot.)
Lonicera villosa (Mountain Fly Honeysuckle): Minnesota Wildflowers
Oh I forgot the name for a minute but there is always falling fruit (maps)
If more people saw wild un cultivated fruit to forge some would start forging them.
Falling Fruit
oops bringing up hybridizing Lonicera (honeysuckle) with Sambuscus (elderberry_)
I was going to ask about caprifoliaceae , and adoxaceae
I guess Elderberry got moved to Adoxaceae
I get confused by that, but haven’t learned much about why they changed it,.
Nanny berry (viburnum) I suppose is Adoxaceae
so I think that at least would be a cool plant to cross w/ elderberry.
Thought I may have hit the jackpot on my way home today, but upon further inspection I had found a prime specimen of American fly honeysuckle (lonicera canadensis) not the mountain fly honeysuckle (lonicera villosa)…so the search continues…but I did bring a sucker of this plant home because it’s pretty neat and a good early spring wildlife plant none the less.
Anyone have any luck locating Lonicera villosa this spring or last?
i do remembering coming across them on fishing trips in the past but damned if i can remember where. anytime i am out i keep my eye peeled. does canadensis have edible fruit like villosa? nice find!
No, canadensis does not have the same edible qualities unfortunately. It produces a pair of red berries that are supposedly consumed by many bird species. Also hummingbirds love the flowers.
neat! a nice flower garden addition. ive never come across those.
