Honeysuckle by Regi

[Dept of PMM Artists & things]

I don't know what it's planet or element is but it grows all around me and last year I took only two large Mason jar's filled them to the brim with honeysuckle.  Then filled it to the brim with vodka.  Put it in our crawl space and shook it once everyday for three weeks and this stuff was awesome for cold, cough, soar throat.  I didn't make enough though and it rocked...  So I am going to make a lot more this year. 

Honeysuckle Flower Profile;

Also known as

Lonicera spp, jin yin hua, Lonicera, Hall's Honeysuckle, Japanese Honeysuckle, and Jen Tung.

Introduction

The fragrant yellow flowers of the honeysuckle vine are used in herbal medicine around the world for cleansing, consuming, and digesting and the flowers of Lonicera japonica, or Japanese honeysuckle, have the added property of stimulating circulation to remove inflammation. Chinese folklore says that it is useful for snakebites. Other folklore surrounding honeysuckle seems to center around love. It is said to be a living symbol of love, the flowers looking like two lovers intertwined. The fragrance is said to induce dreams of passion and love. One of the most enduring folk tales is that if one brings a honeysuckle in bloom into their home, a wedding will follow within a year. Used in Asia medicinally for thousands of years, honeysuckle is an anti-bacterial, anti-inflammatory, anti-spasmodic, diuretic, and used to reduce blood pressure. The buds and flowers are made into puddings and syrups, and the stems and flowers, used together, are made into an infusion for help with upper respiratory tract infections.

Constituents

Inositol, luteolin, tannins.

Parts Used

The dried flowers, harvested just before the bud opens. Some products used to treat boils and abscesses include honeysuckle bark.

Typical Preparations

Teas and tinctures. Traditionally combined with mint for rashes or outbreaks on the skin following nervous tension, and with scutellaria to treat boils.

Summary

In Traditional Chinese medicine, honeysuckle flowers are among the important herbs for clearing heat and relieving toxicity. This herb relieves "fire toxicity" manifesting itself as hot, painful sores or swellings of the eyes, throat, or breast. It expels "wind-heat" manifesting itself as sore throat or headache after explore to cold. And it treats "damp heat" manifesting itself as bladder infection. Modern laboratory research has confirmed that the flowers have an inhibitory effect on the bacteria that cause salmonella, staph, strep, pseudomonas, and tuberculosis infections. Honeysuckle flowers act as natural antihistamine, although they are more useful for treating rashes and inflammation than for treating coughing and sneezing. Some Japanese health food products include honeysuckle for treating bloating, nausea, and vomiting caused by hepatitis C.

Precautions

Avoid when there is chronic diarrhea caused by cancer treatment, HIV, hepatitis C, or other chronic disease.

Early June I start to smell these babies, and a few weeks later they are blooming all over.  I have them in the front of my house, back of my house, and both sides of the property.  I am over ran with them really, but I love them so much for the smell of them I just couldn't stand to stop them.  But the Honeysuckle's starting to dethrone the blackberries...  I might have to be the go between there.  I love blackberry jam.  

 

These are from last year...  This is from the front yard-

And here is the Blackberry Bush's and it is framed in honeysuckle.

This was a picture of the two together, with both the Blackberries and the

Honeysuckle thriving like some other world heaven.  Only problem with the picture is that flower that is out of focus.  Other wise you could have seen it just like I saw it.  Or maybe not like I saw it but as close as it got to the real thing.

Ha, ahhh so funny that little out of focus flower is a black berry vine!  And so it demands it's place here!