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Honeysuckle family (Caprifoliaceae)
Shrub of heights 1.5-4(5) m. Leaves 5-12 cm in length., 3-5 lobed, irregularly toothed on margins. Leaf-stalks have nectaries. Flowers hermaphrodite, white, scented, clustered in flat umbels up to 10 cm in diameter. Centrally-located flowers smaller and fertile, marginal ones larger and sterile, evolved to attract insects. Drupes red, glassy in appearance, spherical and of 10 mm diameter, long hanging on the shrubs. Flowers May-Jun.
Grows on moist, moderately fertile and fertile soils, in luxuriant broadleaved (riparian, oak-lime-hornbeam or more rarely alder) forests. Fruit edible on cooking.
Descriptions devised by the team at the Independent Department of Forest Botany, Warsaw University of Life Sciences, i.e. L. Witkowska-Żuk, K. Marciszewska, W. Ciurzycki, A. Obidziński and P. Zaniewski
