Honeysuckle Lonicera periclymenum


Lonicera periclymenum
Honeysuckle flower
  • Common Names
  • Honeysuckle , jin yin hua, lonicera
  • Botanical Name
  • Lonicera periclymenum
  • Family
  • CAPRIFOLIACEAE
Share

mountain rose
Buy Honeysuckle Bulk Organic


Medicinal Uses & Benefits of Honeysuckle

remedyHow to Use| Side Effects | Plant & Garden|

How to Use: Honeysuckle


This sweet smelling shrub fills the summer air with it's sweet scent, however this pretty climbing vine is more than just a pretty face, it may just be the cure for the common cold. The Chinese name the honeysuckle flower jin yin hua or shuang hua, and the stem jin yin teng or jen tung. It is considered one of the 50 fundamental herbs in Chinese herbology, a far cry from the Western way classification as an ornamental vine for the backyard fence. They use the flowers to reduce inflammation, fever and heat cases of acute respiratory infection and common colds, inflammations of the skin, gastrointestinal tract, and rheumatism and rheumatoid arthritis. In TCM, honeysuckle is used in combination with Chrysanthemum flowers to lower high blood pressure. In combination with Forsythia fruit, honeysuckle makes an effective remedy against the common coldHC# 083063-094

Preparation Methods & Dosage :Teas, tinctures, flower water. ointments. The only remedy I can find with instructions for use is and old one from John Evelyn (1792), who mentions using the spring buds of honeysuckle in the same manner and purposes as elderflower. 4


Traditional Chinese Medicine traditional Chinese medicine

In Traditional Chinese medicine, honeysuckle flowers are among the important herbs for clearing heat and relieving toxicity. 1

Honeysuckle Side Effects: Honeysuckle is not intended for long-term use. While the flowers are low in toxicity, the fruits, leaves, and stems are more toxic. Symptoms of poisoning include extreme tiredness, drowsiness, dilated pupils, and photosensitivity.HC# 083063-094

^ Top^

Plant Description


Honeysuckles come in wide variety of cultivars, some are hardy shrubs and most are climbing vines that grow widely in North America. Some are deciduous and some, in warmer regions, are evergreen. Honeysuckles are heat-tolerant and honeysuckle plant will draw abundant wildlife with its sweet yellow to bright-red blossoms.

Regional Traditions :Traditional Chinese Medicine *

Related Species L. caprifolium, the Italian honeysuckle, L. tartarica, from Siberia, and L. xylosteum from Asia and eastern Europe


History and Traditions & Folklore

The flowers have been highly valued for medicinal purposes by many cultures worldwide and their use was recommended by Dioscorides and Gerard.

Mercury hath dominion over the common sort. Dodoneus saith, The leaves and flowers are good to ease the griping pains of the gout, the herb being boiled and used in a clyster. If the herb be made into a poultice, and applied to inflammations, it will ease them. The juice dropped in the eyes, is a familiar medicine, with many country people, to take away the pin and web (as they call it) in the eyes; it also allays the heat and blood shooting of them. Country people do also in many places drink the juice thereof against the biting of an adder; and having boiled the herb in water, they first wash the place with the decoction, and then lay some of the herb also to the hurt place. The herb also boiled in swine's grease, and so made into an ointment, is good to apply to the biting of any venomous creature. The herb also bruised and heated between tiles, and applied hot to the share, causes them to make water who had it stopt before. It is held likewise to be good for wounds, and to take away seed. The decoction of the herb and flowers, with the seed and root, taken for some time, helps women that are troubled with the whites. The seed and flowers boiled in water, and afterwards made into a poultice with some oil, and applied, helps hard swellings and imposthumes.
Nicholas Culpeper, 1653

References:
books citedWorks Cited
  1. Duke, James The Green Pharmacy Herbal Handbook .(December 15, 2000)
  2. Mountain Rose Herbs Honeysuckle Profile
  3. Richard Mabey. The New Age Herbalist (1988)
  4. W. T. Fernie ,M.D. 1897. "Herbal Simples Approved For Modern Uses Of Cure"
    "It were likewise profitable for the scabby if they made a sallet of those young buds, who in the beginning of the spring doe bud forth together with those outbreakings and pustules of the skin, which by the singular favour of nature is contemporaneous; these being sometimes macerated a little in hot water, together with oyle, salt, and vinegar, and sometimes eaten. It purgeth the belly, and freeth the blood from salt and serous humours" . Further, "there be nothing more excellent to ease the pains of the haemorrhoids than a fomentation made of the flowers of the Elder and Verbusie, or Honeysuckle, in water or milk, for in a short time it easeth the greatest pain."
  5. Grieve, Maud Mrs. "A Modern Herbal" (1931)
  6. Medicinal Properties of Honeysuckle Van Galen, Rees. Lonicera japonica, honeysuckle Australian Journal of Medical Herbalism. Vol 7 No 4 1995American Botanical Council