Botanist Charlie Deam: No Fan of the Honeysuckle
"I cannot tell you in words how I regard this vine.
Your question is, does it propagate from seed?
I do not believe it does."
June 29, 1951
On this day, the botanist Charles Clemon Deam replied to an inquiry about the honeysuckle.
Charles wrote:
That [plant's] name is to me the same as a red flag to a bull.
I cannot tell you in words how I regard this vine.
Your question is, does it propagate from seed?
I do not believe it does.
... I have never heard a good word for it.
...All that I can say affirmatively is that it is no good for anything."
In concluding his condemnation of the honeysuckle, Charles twice suggested that he was hopeful some new "insecticides" might kill it.
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Honeysuckle
Charles C. Deam
TREES OF INDIANA