Posted on 10/24/2014 7:07:29 AM PDT by tired&retired
I never knew what they were until last week when I was over at a family’s B-Day party and the Dad informed me of what it was.
I thought it was some other kind of unwanted invasive vine. But yes, the irony if the vine turns out to ever have medicinal purposes.
The honeysuckle used in the research article is Lonicera japonica or Japanese Honeysuckle, which is one of the two exotic invasive species of honeysuckle found growing wild in the United States (the other being the shrub Lonicera maackii). In the eastern United States and Hawaii Lonicera japonica is responsible for significant environmental damage, destroying and displacing native forest species.
Most cultivated (ornamental garden) honeysuckle is no longer edible, but wild honeysuckle (Japanese Honeysuckle or Lonicera Japonica) contains a sweet nectar that’s just like… you guessed it, honey.
Some honeysuckles have poisonous berries and some do not. Red Tartarian (pinkish flowers and orange/red berries) is definitely poisonous, as is Lonicera Japonica (Japanese honeysuckle with the yellowish flowers and black berries).
Edible Parts
Leaves
Flowers
Leaves - cooked. The parboiled leaves are used as a vegetable. Some caution is advised, see notes above on toxicity.
Warning: The leaves contain saponins. Saponins are quite toxic but are poorly absorbed by the human body and so most pass through without harm. They can be found in many common foods such as some beans. Thorough cooking, and perhaps changing the cooking water once, will normally remove most of the saponins.
Flowers - sucked for their sweet nectar, used as a vegetable or made into a syrup and puddings. A tea is made from the leaves, buds and flowers.
Medicinal Uses
The stems and flower buds are alternative to antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, antispasmodic, depurative, diuretic, febrifuge.
The plant is also used to reduce blood pressure. The stems are used internally in the treatment of acute rheumatoid arthritis, mumps and hepatitis. The stems are harvested in the autumn and winter, and are dried for later use. The stems and flowers are used together as an infusion in the treatment of upper respiratory tract infections (including pneumonia) and dysentery.
An infusion of the flower buds is used in the treatment of a wide range of ailments including syphilitic skin diseases and tumours, bacterial dysentery, colds, enteritis, pain, swellings etc. Experimentally, the flower extracts have been shown to lower blood cholesterol levels and are antibacterial, antiviral and tuberculostatic.
Externally, the flowers are applied as a wash to skin inflammations, infectious rashes and sores. The flowers are harvested in early morning before they open and are dried for later use.
The plant has a similar action to Forsythia suspensa and is usually used in combination with that species to achieve a stronger action. This plant has become a serious weed in many areas of N. America, it might have the potential to be utilized for proven medical purposes.
The Japanese Honeysuckle flower is of high medicinal value in traditional Chinese medicine, where it is called “winter enduring vine”) or literally “gold silver flower”).
Alternate Chinese names include Er Hua and Shuang Hua. It has antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties, and is used (often in combination with Forsythia suspensa) to dispel heat and remove toxins, including carbuncles, fevers, influenza and ulcers. In Korean, it is called geumeunhwa. The dried leaves are also used in traditional Chinese medicine.
Jin Yin Hua (Japanese Honeysuckle, Flos Lonicerae Japonicae) is notable for its inclusion in the traditional Chinese medicine herbal formula Honeysuckle and Forsythia Powder. In pinyin, this formula is called Yin Qiao San. Traditional indications for use of this formula include fever, headache, cough, thirst, and sore throat.For indications such as this, it is common to find Japanese Honeysuckle paired in Chinese medicine herbal formulations with Forsythia (Lian Qiao, Fructus Forsythiae Suspensae).
According to Chinese medicine, these herbs, when combined, have a synergistic medicinal effect to address indications such as fever with headache and sore throat. This is why these two herbs are considered “paired herbs.”
Other uses for honeysuckle:
Fishing
Saponins are much more toxic to some creatures, such as fish, and hunting tribes have traditionally put large quantities of them in streams, lakes etc in order to stupefy or kill the fish.
Other Uses
The plant is said to be a natural insecticidal.
The stems have been used in making baskets.
What Are the Dangers of Honeysuckle?
http://homeguides.sfgate.com/dangers-honeysuckle-55100.html
Honeysuckle plants are members of the Caprifoliaceae family of plants, which consist of evergreen to semi-evergreen shrubs and vines. They are often cultivated in home landscapes as ornamental vines and are prized for their rapid growth and fragrant, attractive blooms. However, many varieties of honeysuckle are mildly poisonous, and if not properly maintained, most honeysuckle species can invade your landscape.
POISONOUS
If the berries of honeysuckle plants are ingested in large quantities, they can cause illness. Toxicity varies depending on the species, ranging from non-poisonous to mildly toxic. Symptoms of mild poisoning by honeysuckle berries include vomiting, diarrhea, sweats, dilated pupils and increased heartbeat. If ingested in large quantities, respiratory failure, convulsions and coma may occur. However, the nectar from the flowers of a honeysuckle plant can be ingested without harm, according to the North Carolina State University Cooperative Extension.
The Japanese version was used in the research study.
Thanks, T&R!
Here is a pdf of the entire research article. If you read the references there are a lot of other excellent journal articles showing research related to this.
http://www.nature.com/cr/journal/vaop/ncurrent/pdf/cr2014130a.pdf
Thought you folks would find humor in the list of authors on the article. I think they included the entire family!!!
Zhen Zhou1, Xihan Li1, Jinxiong Liu, Lei Dong, Qun Chen, Jialing Liu, Huihui Kong, Qianyi Zhang,Xian Qi, Dongxia Hou, Lin Zhang, Guoquan Zhang, Yuchen Liu, Yujing Zhang, Jing Li, Jin Wang,Xi Chen, Hua Wang, Junfeng Zhang, Hualan Chen, Ke Zen, Chen-Yu Zhang
Here is how they prepared the honeysuckle for the study:
Honeysuckle
HS was bought from a Chinese herbal medicine shop. Honeysuckle decoction was prepared by boiling 10 g of HS in 100 ml water for 30 min, resulting in ~50 ml decoction.
Conclusion from the Journal Article:
In conclusion, the present study provides the first evidence that the highly stable plant MIR2911 can directly target multiple viral genes of various IAVs and thus suppress viral infections. With its broad-spectrum, anti-viral activity against IAVs, MIR2911 and MIR2911-containing HS decoction may represent a new effective therapeutic strategy that can be used to subdue deadly IAV infections. It is important to note that since Fleming discovered penicillin nearly a century ago, antibiotics have been developed to target various bacterial infections and have saved the lives of millions of people. Unfortunately, no natural product that is effective against viral infection has been identified thus far. We suggest that as the first natural product to directly target IAVs, MIR2911 is the “virological penicillin” that serves as a novel therapeutic and preventive agent against not only influenza A but potentially also other types of viruses.
However, the nectar from the flowers of a honeysuckle plant can be ingested without harm, according to the North Carolina State University Cooperative Extension.
Whew, I don’t know who told me I could taste the nectar but a kid will try anything. I’m glad I ate the right part of honeysuckle. I can’t remember any red berries on our plants and I didn’t know there were several varieties. Learning things all the time. Thanks everyone for all the interesting information,
I know I have.
Honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica) has become invasive around my land. It appears to come in both bush and vine form. I guess I’ll leave it alone for now.
And to think, a possible Ebola-killer might be growing along my back fence . . .
Thanks for the ping!
Good article. The only part I question is the “first”. Several plants have been shown to have anti-viral properties. I’ll have to consult my books to see if the compound in the article shows up in other plants. The article mentioned a few others: Poplar, tobacco, and sunflowers.
Elderberry extract has also been proven in lab tests to have several anti-viral compounds. One reason I’ve recently become a bit elderberry-crazy. I have the leaves and stems brewing into tinctures right now. If you prefer the mass-produced version, look for Sambucol. It’ll be in the same section as the cough drops.
I’ll have to add honeysuckle to my medicinal herbs garden.
Would you have seeds you could send me? The kind I have growing is a different honeysuckle.
Unfortunately, ours is Lonicera tatarica, not Lonicera japonica
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonicera_tatarica
I’ll do some digging and see if they share that particular compound. They might not.
Oh my gosh. Had a bit of nostagia.
“We used to pull the stamen from the flowers and suck the nectar off them ..... “
We did the same thing.
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