TWIN-BERRY.
Lonicera involucrata, Banks. Honeysuckle Family.
Shrubs eight to ten feet high. Leaves.--Three inches long or so. Flowers.—A pair; at the summit of an axillary peduncle; with a conspicuous involucre of four bracts, tinged with red or yellow. Calyx.—Adherent to the ovary; the limb minute or obsolete. Corolla.—Tubular; irregular; half an inch or more long; viscid-pubescent; yellowish. Stamens.—Five. Ovary.—Two- or three-celled. Style filiform. Stigma capitate. Berries.—Black-purple. Hab.—Throughout the State; eastward to Lake Superior.
A walk through some moist thicket, or along a stream-bank in March, will reveal the yellow flowers of the twin-berry amid its ample, thin green leaves. These blossoms are always borne in pairs at the summit of the stem, and are surrounded by a leafy involucre, consisting of two pairs of round, fluted bracts. As the berries ripen and become black, these bracts deepen to a brilliant red and make the shrubs much more conspicuous and ornamental than at blossoming-time.