Honeysuckle - sweet invasion

Lonicera japonica (Japanese honeysuckle) is considered an invasive species in the United States. I'm not going to get into the nativist politics of species here except to preface this eulogy with yes, I do grow Japanese honeysuckle. I use it in my enfleurage. Because I do not let it produce fruit, I am somewhat keeping it under control. This isn't so much intentional as a byproduct of doing enfleurage. I deadhead all of my honeysuckle to keep it flowering from frost to frost, thereby preventing the production of honeysuckle berries and seeds. This might sound like an exaggeration but I have clinical OCD, so you can believe that I am out there every 1-2 days, collecting blossoms and deadheading. If I miss any, I get them the next day. So here's my claim to enfleurage exceptionalism: my honeysuckle is not invading. I've got it *under control.* And you know, humans have had such great luck controlling nature.

 

But how sweet it smells. Those delicate white and yellow tubes streaming their nectar. Some say it smells like vanilla. I assure you, it does not. Fresh honeysuckle smells like peach, pear, and apricot juice. This odor trumpets from the white, cream, and straw flowers, just split open that night or morning. If the diploid lips curl back for another day, they ripen to shades of butter and cheddar. Likewise, their aroma becomes fermented, yeasty, and heady, with notes of cereal, wheat, and barley. Perhaps this is partly why plant lore associates it with witches.

Enfleurage is like a funeral for flowers. It captures some of the young dew, but it also mummifies the honeysuckle in old age, right up to the cliff of decay. So let this be a disclaimer about my honeysuckle enfleurage: it's not just young brides sacrificed to the sheet of fat.

 

Click here to see my honeysuckle enfleurage.