Lonicera × purpusii ‘Winter Beauty’

In winter and early spring flowers are in short supply, so we appreciate the earliest bulbs, Snowdrops and Winter Aconites, and other plants that flower in winter, such as Witch Hazels, Winter Heliotrope and Viburnum bodnantense.

The shrubby winter Honeysuckle Lonicera × purpusii ‘Winter Beauty’ is another of those plants which look lovely early in the year. It is semi-evergreen or deciduous and between December and March it is covered in clusters of white, tubular flowers with prominent yellow anthers which have a lovely scent. The flowers are welcome food for bees late or early in the year.

Unlike many of its relatives, Lonicera × purpusii grows as a bush, rather than a climber. It has an arching habit and will grow about two metres tall, but will spread to about three metres across. It can be pruned after flowering, but it will look its best if it isn’t pruned or, at the most, if its branches are thinned by up to a third rather than cut back. It will do best in sun or semi-shade in well drained soil, though it will do best if a mulch of well rotted compost or manure is spread around its base in early spring.

Honeysuckles, genus Lonicera,  are members of the family Caprifoliaceae and are therefore distant relatives of the Whorlflower, Morina longifolia, that I wrote about last November.

Lonicera x purpusii is a cross between Lonicera fragrantissima and Lonicera standishii, produced in the 1920s in Darmstadt Botanic Garden in Germany. The name Lonicera was given in honour of the German naturalist, Adam Lonicer (1528 – 1586), a German botanist. Purpusii was named after two German brothers: Carl Albert Purpus (1851 – 1941) and Joseph Anton Purpus (1860-1932). Together they collected plants from Mexico and the western United States; Joseph also collected in Russia.

By mid spring Lonicera × purpusii has finished flowering and by mid summer it is easily forgotten. For this reason it is often planted at the back of the border. Combine it with shrubs that look good in summer but don’t plant it too far away from a path, where its winter beauty and scent can be appreciated.

Detail of flowers

The specimen I have photographed is in a front garden on Christchurch Road in Norwich; there is another good example in a nearby garden. Norwich City Council have planted it on West End Street, but those specimens have been pruned back and don’t have the arching grace of (or as many flowers as) the Christchurch Road specimens.