Caprifoliaceae (cap-ree-foh-lee-AY-see-ee)
Iconic Features
- Mostly shrubs and vines
- Flowers often bell-shaped or tubular
- Inferior ovary
- Fleshy fruit
Description (Jepson)
- Eudicotyledons (eudicots) – a major lineage of flowering plants including most plants traditionally described as dicots and generally characterized by
- 2 seed leaves (dicotyledon)
- Netted (reticulate) leaf venation
- Flower parts in fours and fives
- Pollen grains with 3 pores (tricolpate)
- Vascular bundles in stem arranged in a ring
- Taproot system
- Shrub to small tree or vine; evergreen or deciduous
- Stem core is pithy (like styrofoam)
- Leaves
- Simple (not divided into leaflets) or compound (divided into leaflets)
- Opposite (2 leaves at each junction with stem)
- Lack stipules (pair of leaf-like structures at the base of the leaf stalk)
- Flowers
- Inflorescence (flower arrangement) in many forms, with flowers often in pairs
- Bisexual flowers often bell-shaped or tubular
- Flower parts in fives: usually 5 small fused sepals (protective cover for bud), 5 fused petals, and 5 stamen (male flower parts), attached to the petals
- Ovary inferior (below the attachment of other flower parts)
- Fruit is a berry (a usually multi-seeded fruit with a fleshy ovary wall) or a drupe (a fleshy fruit with usually 1 seed in a hard inner shell — a stone fruit)
Notes
- Approximately 220 species worldwide
- Includes snowberries and honeysuckles
- Stem core is pithy (like styrofoam)
- Scientific name from the included genus Caprifolium (now Lonicera), from the Latin caper, “goat,” and folium, “leaf”
- The common name for honeysuckle in German, French, and Italian also means “goat leaf,” suggesting that honeysuckles may be a favorite food of goats
- Several traditional members of this family, including elderberries (Sambucus), viburnums, and twinflower (Linnaea), have been moved to other families
- Represented by 4 species at Edgewood
Browse Some Edgewood Plants in this Family
