The genus carries the name of Adam Lonitzer, a sixteenth-century German physician and herbalist, and carries a bad reputation earned entirely by one species. Lonicera japonica, the Japanese honeysuckle that smothers Southern fencerows, is not in this catalog and never will be. What grows here instead is the native coral honeysuckle and a set of well-behaved garden hybrids.

Lonicera sempervirens is the one to plant. The vine is native across the East, blooms coral to scarlet from spring into fall, holds leaves through mild winters, and is the single best hummingbird plant most Southern gardeners can put on a mailbox or a fence. 'John Clayton' flowers clear yellow and honors the colonial Virginia botanist; 'Leo' runs deeper red. Among the hybrids, Lonicera x heckrottii 'Goldflame' pairs pink buds with a yellow throat, and the winter honeysuckle Lonicera x purpusii is a shrub rather than a vine, throwing small cream flowers with an outsized lemon scent in the cold months. None of these run the way the Japanese species does.