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| Lonicera involucrata |
| Family: Caprifoliaceae (Honeysuckle) |
| Flowers — color: red, size: 3/4" long, type: tubular |
Black Twinberry has a red tubular flower about 3/4" long. Tiny white hairs cover the tube. The mouth opens with five flaring yellow lobes. White anthers inside mouth and pistil with green stigma slightly extended.
A one-inch long peduncle grows from a leaf node ending with two red bracts, leaf-like covers. The bracts hold two flower buds, normally.
Habit:
I was coasting my bicycle down Burton Mesa Rd. when I spied red spots in the gully. I returned with my camera and found these twinberries, dozens of them. This gully is quite marshy, associated with the tules growing along Clubhouse Rd., and poison oak covered the steep bank. So this is as close as I got.
Black Twinberry is a perennial shrub or tree. The height ranges from two to fifteen feet. New stems are green, sunburning to red. Pairs of leaves attach directly to the stem. The elliptic, narrow at base and tip, leaves are several inches long. The top is shiny and crazed with shallow indented lines, while the reverse is hairy.
Flowers deed hummingbirds and berries feed wildlife. One nickname is bearberry honeysuckle. Berries are not quite palatable for humans. USDA recommends this shrub for streambank erosion control, so it must be quite riparian.
Observations:
Along Burton Mesa Rd.