Honeysuckle - Herborium - The White Goddess

Honeysuckle

Honeysuckle

Name: Common Honeysuckle, European Honeysuckle or Woodbine

Common Species
Lonicera periclymenum (European Honeysuckle or Woodbine)
Lonicera japonica (Japanese Honeysuckle, White Honeysuckle, or Chinese Honeysuckle)
Lonicera sempervirens (Coral Honeysuckle, Trumpet Honeysuckle, or Woodbine Honeysuckle)

Description
Honeysuckle is a deciduous climbing plant that grows up to 10 m high. The leaves are opposite, simple oval, 1–10 cm long.  It has white tinged with pink sweetly-scented, bell-shaped flowers that produce a sweet, edible nectar.  Honeysuckle attracts moths, butterflies, bees and other pollinating insects.

Flower Colour: White, Cream or Pink

Magical Uses

Honeysuckle - devoted love - said to protect your garden from evil. It is known as the 'love bind' - symbolizing a lover's embrace in its clinging growing habits. The heady fragrance of the flowers was believed to induce dreams of love and passion. If the bloom is brought into the house a wedding is said to follow within the year. The honeysuckle's berries are poisonous.

Honeysuckle has been burned as incense since ancient times within homes and dwellings for prosperity. It is said that burning honeysuckle can attract and maintain financial blessings into the home. The sugary and lemony scent of honeysuckle sweetens the thoughts of those who smell it, therefore triggering generosity.Since ancient times, it is said that the sweet scent of honeysuckle works to clear the mind and work to strengthen psychic powers. Some believe that crushing and placing the honeysuckle flowers next to the forehead can boost the psychic powers within the mind. The scent of honeysuckle can sharpen intuition when used as a plant, when burned as incense or when dried and placed around the room in sachets.

Posted by Welsh Witch

Medicinal Uses

Honeysuckle (Lonicera Japonica) has got some medecinal uses. In China it is used extensively to treat sore throats, colds, flue, tonsillitis, bronchitis, pneumonia.

Honeysuckle flower extracts are strongly active against several bacteria causing respiratory problems, including those that cause TB.

Tea can be made from flowers (in summer). In winter twigs and dried leaves can be used to make bitter tea (bitter flavour can be improved by adding honey and lemon).

Posted by Reflection

Comments

"I love the fragrance of it. There are very few more beautiful things to me than when I'm out on my twilight walks with the terrorist and the smell of wild flowers drifts past on the breeze.

Evening is the time to smell it in all it's glory, along with wild roses at the moment."

Posted by Pyewacket

"Woodbine, the wild honeysuckle, grows freely in the woods close to us and in the heights of summer from late afternoon to dusk the scent is indescribably beautiful. Its a heady fragrance reminiscent of jasmine but not jasmine. So very different from the cultivated honeysuckle."

Posted by Suanni

(Posts copyright ©2011 Reflection, Welsh Witch, Pyewacket, Suanni.  Photographs ©2011 Pyewacket)

DISCLAIMER:
Please be aware that this information is provided solely for informational purposes only. It is neither intended nor implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider prior to using any herbs or treatments made from herbs.