Wilson's Honeysuckle - Lonicera nitida

Lonicera nitida is a dense, evergreen shrub, growing to 3.5m tall and 3m wide, with small, ovate, glossy dark-green leaves on arching branches. The leaves are borne at right angles to the stem. The stem has both long and short hairs. It has tiny cream tubular flowers, followed by sparse, glossy, blue-purple berries in autumn.

Superficially similar to Box (Buxus sempervirens) but they are completely different in flower and fruit. Also similar to Box-leaved Honeysuckle (Lonicera pileata) but that species has longer, pointed, more forward-directed leaves and only short stem hairs.

Used for garden hedges and often found as a naturalised escape from cultivation, establishing from clippings in disturbed ground or on railway verges.

Flowers in spring are followed, in autumn, by blue-purple berries in autumn.

Evergreen shrub.

Fairly widespread in Britain.

Rare or rarely recorded in Leicestershire and Rutland. It was not recorded in the 1979 Flora survey of Leicestershire.