Plant-Lore

Collecting the folklore and uses of plants

Honeysuckle

1. From a close farming friend of mine [of Mardu, Clun] … honeysuckle – never taken indoors; don’t know why [Newcastle-on-Clun, Shropshire, November 2004].

0542. C. O’S (39) of … Ballinahinch, Birdhill, Co. Tipperary remembers, as a child, sucking the nectar from the base of honeysuckle flowers [Clonlara, Co. Clare, June 2002].

3. My wife recalls from her time as an evacuee in the War, in Somerset … pull[ing] the stamens of honesuckle backwards to suck the drop of nectar that formed at the end [Horley, Surrey, January 1999].

4. We went out to see Lily Ball Sunday night … and she said … her mother wouldn’t have honeysuckle indoors as it brought sickness in with it [Thorncombe, Dorset, February 1983].

5. Unlucky to bring honeysuckle flowers into the house [Swansea, 1983].

Images: Hastings Country Park, East Sussex, May 2014; inset, The Blackcountry Living Museum, Dudley, West Midlands, September 2015.