“…I was in the house where that damn honeysuckle trying not to think the swing the cedars the secret surges the breathing locked drinking the wild breath the the Yes Yes yes…” — William Faulkner, “The Sound and the Fury.”

Honeysuckle vines are far more than fragrant floral eye-candy, perking up walls and weedy spots in Baltimore on a late spring evening — their tiny yellow-and-white blossoms are also literary references, sexual metaphors and, for the resourceful urban forager, the source of a cooling tea and a soothing cough syrup.

“Reminds me of a Nevada brothel,” a total stranger remarked to a friend gardening in front of her University Parkway house recently, demonstrating that even upright Roland Parkers go a little libidinal when they inhale the honeysuckle’s incense-sweet scent.

It’s not surprising that honeysuckle appears as a metaphor for romance in the love story of Tristan and Isolde in France where it is called “chevrefoil” (Goat’s leaf), or for sexuality in William Faulkner’s “The Sound and the Fury.” Its fragrance is indeed alluring, intoxicating, and sensuous.

Here in Baltimore, I often pause at the cascading falls of honeysuckle vines that cover my neighbors’ brick wall in the evening –when the flowers are at their most fragrant.

Although their distinctive scent symbolizes the heat of romance, passion, and even lust in the Western imagination, in East Asia the honeysuckle is one of the most popular cooling herbs.

In fact, most of the honeysuckle one finds in the Eastern U.S., including Baltimore, is a major invasive species from Japan, Korea, and eastern China called the Japanese honeysuckle.(Lonicera japonica.) Its stems, leaves, and flowers are used medicinally in traditional Chinese medicine, where honeysuckle is commonly called “gold silver flower” (jin yín hua). This name captures the flowers’ unusual combination of white and yellow paired blossoms perfectly: the buds first appear white, open at night, and remain white the next morning, but as they age they turn yellow, which accounts for the greater percentage of yellow over white flowers on any given vine.

Honeysuckle’s earliest known name in Chinese herbals was the “winter enduring vine” (ren dong teng) because of the way it retains its leaves during the winter.

When combined with forsythia, honeysuckle creates a common herbal formula called “Honeysuckle-Forsythia Powder,” or “Honeysuckle-Forsythia Resolving Toxins Pill” that is thought to have synergistic anti-inflammatory and anti-bacterial properties that help release the “heat toxin” of a fever with headache and a sore throat. They are a popular cold remedy in China and Hong Kong.

Phytochemists have isolated lonicerin, inositol, and tannin from the dried honeysuckle blossoms you can purchase by the pound in most Chinese grocery stores. A popular combination for the summer is with chrysanthemum flowers as found in “Twin Flower Tea” (shuang hua cha.) Not surprisingly, it is also found as an ingredient in western herbal formulas for cough syrups.

Since I would like to have some cooling tea for the summer as well as put aside some effective cough syrup for the winter, I am drying some of the flowers and leaves for Chinese tea and processing the rest as a western herbal syrup, to freeze until needed when the cold weather and inevitable colds return.

Honeysuckle Flower Tea
In a teapot combine:
2 Tbsp dried honeysuckle flower
1 Tbsp green tea
Sugar or honey to taste
Add 6 cups boiling water and let steep for at least 5 mins.
Add fresh mint and lemon as you wish and let cool.

Twin Flower Tea
4 oz dried chrysanthemum flowers
4 oz dried honeysuckle flowers
6 cups boiled water
Or simply put 2 tbsp of the above mixture in a thermos or teapot and add boiling water.

Honeysuckle Cough Syrup

Ingredients
2 cups honeysuckle fresh edible flowers (and leaves)
1 quart water
1 cup honey

1. Gather two cups of leaves and flowers from wild Honeysuckle vines (make sure they haven’t been sprayed). If you can’t get the flowers, leave them out of the recipe.
2. Bring 1 quart of water to a boil and add the two cups of honeysuckle leaves. Gently simmer for 10 minutes and strain.
3. Add the “tea” back to the pot and add 1 cup of honey, bring to a boil and boil for one minute and remove from heat. Add any flavorings at this time to the syrup.
4. Store in fridge up to a month or freeze in small batches and take out what you need at one time.
5. Dosage: 1 oz every two hours for 5 yr. olds and up to adult.

((I tried this today and it did seem to quiet my cough.))

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Source for Chinese medicinal teas: “Shiu-ying Hu, Food Plants of China.” Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2005.

((USUAL DISCLAIMER: “The Baltimore Urban Forager” is a hard-working and humble amateur, not an expert or medical professional, so pick, drink and eat at your own risk.))