Diervilla lonicera, bush honeysuckle , a small shrub which grows to no more than three feet in our climate. [1] It closely resembles the syringa in its wood and leaves, of which the serrations are however more regular and far less deep. At the beginning of June, it produces small, yellowish flowers which last for about a fortnight and would seem more considerable if they were not so dispersed along the branches. Some flowers even appear towards the end of August and last as long as the first. One need not encourage its propagation, which is excessive: it multiplies from its roots which spread over a wide area and produce a number of suckers at their tips, making it impossible to prune the shrub into a regular shape. This plant thrives in the shade, and in soil which is damp and silty. It can grow in dry soil, in which it attains only half its height but produces many more flowers and fewer suckers. This shrub is best used for embellishing bosquets, where it will tolerate the shade of large trees and where its chief attraction lies in forming a pretty flowering border early in spring, even from the beginning of February. Although this shrub originates from English possessions in America, particularly from Acadia which is more southerly than France, it is so hardy that it can withstand our harshest winters, irrespective of soil condition and exposure. [2]

Notes

1. The genus Diervilla is attributed to Miller and named after M. Dierville, a French surgeon who visited Canada from 1699-1700 and introduced Diervilla lonicera into Europe. The species was named Lonicera diervilla in Linnaeus, 1753, but this article which was published in October 1754 is preceded by a botanical entry composed by Louis-Jean-Marie Daubenton which gives Diervilla as the genus for the popular name ‘dierville’. The younger Daubenton is thus among the earliest post-Linnaean authors to use the Tournefortian generic name, first restored in Miller, 1754 which was published on 28 January 1754. In Miller, 1768 the plant was given the specific epithet lonicera to avoid a tautonym (Huxley et al., 1992, ii.65; Stearn, 1990, pp. 174-5, 179).

2. Acadia was contested by both England and France. In 1621, James I gave the land to Sir William Alexander to found the colony of Nova Scotia. The Treaty of Utrecht (1713) gave Nova Scotia to the British, and in 1755, the year after the present article was published, many French-speaking Acadians were deported by the British due to the imminence of war with France ( Encyclopedia Britannica, 1995).