Not-so-sweet Honeysuckle

A few years ago several Skye stalwarts botanised the mean streets of Portree as part of the Urban Flora of Scotland Project ('urban' being any town with a population over 1000. Skye has two such towns). My own survey area consisted two monads to the north of the town centre and today I recalled finding a spot behind bushes that had been used as a dumping ground by the houses opposite. In particular, I recalled a large amount of Pick-a-back Plant growing beneath trees and I 'needed' Pick-a-back Plant for my yearlist. With an hour to kill in Portree, I parked up and took a wander down towards the area in question. Pretty soon I was ducking beneath trees and entered a small dell full of alien plants. Mostly it was wall to wall Pick-a-back Plant, but also a lot of Montbretia, some small Rhododendrons, plenty of Yellow Archangel and the like. A typical scenario here on Skye, green waste fly-tipping is not seen as an issue whatsoever. Personally speaking, I would love to slap the householders with a huge fine and then make them dig up the results of their illegal dumping. Happily (for them) it's a good thing that I'm not in a position to demand any such punishments. 

I spied a small growth of honeysuckle, twining its way up a brash pile. The lanceolate leaves immediately put me in mind of Henry's Honeysuckle, though they seemed rather too pale and limp for that species. I've only ever seen Henry's Honeysuckle at a site in Lochgilphead in Argyll and that was back in 2022. I did briefly revisit it in 2024 so that Ghostie could tick it, but from memory it was a far more vigorous and robust plant. Of course, the plant in front of me was a mere youngster, maybe it will bulk up as time progresses. I took a few phone pics and a sample sprig before wandering back to the car to consult my copies of Stace and Poland. 

Stace, in this instance, was of no use to me at all. Stace is all about the flowering parts and my plant didn't have any. Poland was much better but, for once, it failed to lead me to a confident conclusion. I suspect the plant is just too immature to identify. It's definitely not Henry's Honeysuckle, the petiolar ridge and distribution of hairs on the leaf are completely wrong. Japanese Honeysuckle seems a better fit, but I've never seen it with leaves anywhere near as lanceolate as this. 

Just to clarify, I've mostly written this post as a memory jog for myself. If I'm reading this in a couple of year's time I might say "oh yeah, I better go see if that honeysuckle is flowering and identifiable yet!" However, if you tune in later this year I may have reached an identity for you. 

In other news, I'm well over 400 species for the year so far. I'm hoping to smash 500 species by the end of the month, that would be pretty cool I feel. I've yet to leave the northern half of Skye this year, my life thus far comprises an area 30 miles top to bottom and considerably less than 20 miles across. I'm not planning to impose any silly rules upon myself regards staying on Skye throughout, I have far too many mainland plant targets in mind for that to ever happen.

I live beneath the red dot and have yet to leave the marked area this year 

Temperatures are due to reach the heady heights of 6°C this weekend, I may well fire up the light trap and see if I can nudge the odd moth or dipteran into the trap. Watch this space to find out!