Eden Apothecary · Herb Profile
Lonicera japonica Thunb.
Pronounced Honeysuckle: HUN-ee-suk-uhl. Jin Yin Hua: jin yin hwah. Lonicera japonica: loh-NISS-er-uh juh-PON-ih-kuh.
Cold, sweet, and cleansing: a cooling flower that draws fire and toxin out of the blood and flesh, quenching hot swollen sores and the first hot flush of a fever.
On temperature, the old sources disagree: Bencao Gangmu (1596) reads it as warm; Bencao Congxin (1757) reads it as neutral. The app keeps cold, the modern reading of what the herb does in the body; the old readings are shown here but do not change it.
Insufficient reliable modern data; avoid medicinal or supplemental amounts. There is not enough reliable information to know whether honeysuckle is safe in pregnancy, and standard guidance is to avoid use. This caution is reinforced by animal and laboratory studies reporting anti-early-pregnancy and antifertility activity for Lonicera japonica. Occasional culinary-strength tea has a long traditional history, but concentrated or therapeutic use should be avoided for want of safety data. (RxList/WebMD, drawing on Natural Medicines Comprehensive Database; Shang et al., Lonicerae Japonicae Flos systematic pharmacology review, J Ethnopharmacol 2011, PMC4519546.)
Insufficient reliable data; avoid amounts greater than in food. There is not enough reliable information on honeysuckle during lactation; culinary-strength tea amounts are presumed low-risk, but supplemental or therapeutic doses should be avoided for want of safety data. (RxList/WebMD, drawing on Natural Medicines Comprehensive Database; NCCIH general herb-in-lactation guidance.)
No established medicinal dose in children; robust safety data are lacking. Weak culinary-strength honeysuckle tea and honeysuckle-flower syrups are traditionally given in East Asia for children's heat, fever, and sore throat, but concentrated or prolonged medicinal use should be avoided without professional guidance, and a cold herb is best kept to short courses. (RxList/WebMD, drawing on Natural Medicines Comprehensive Database.)
Honeysuckle flower is a gentle, food-grade herb with a wide safety margin and a long culinary and medicinal history, but several real cautions apply. First, being strongly cold it is poorly suited to cold, weak, deficient digestion and can cause loose stools or belly ache in cold-natured people; it is best used in short courses for acute heat rather than long-term. Second, modern laboratory and animal research reports antiplatelet, blood-sugar-lowering, and anti-early-pregnancy and antifertility activity, which underlies theoretical cautions in pregnancy and with anticoagulant, antiplatelet, and antidiabetic medications. Third, use the correct part and species: the medicinal material is the dried flower bud of Lonicera japonica, not the berries; the berries of various ornamental honeysuckles can cause nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea if eaten. As with any botanical, allergic reactions are possible; discontinue if rash or swelling occurs.
Cold, deficient digestive states and yang deficiency, in which a strongly cold herb aggravates; wind-cold colds (as opposed to wind-heat); pregnancy and lactation in medicinal amounts (insufficient safety data, plus animal reports of anti-early-pregnancy and antifertility activity); and concurrent anticoagulant, antiplatelet, or blood-sugar-lowering drug therapy without supervision. Do not use the berries.
Not at risk; the opposite concern applies. Lonicera japonica is a vigorous, widely cultivated plant and an aggressive invasive weed across the eastern United States (introduced in the 1800s, now invasive in dozens of states), where it smothers native vegetation. There is no conservation pressure on this species; wild flowers can be harvested freely, and removing it benefits native habitat. Source flowers grown without pesticides, and take care to identify the species correctly, since some ornamental honeysuckles have mildly toxic berries.
Not in canonical biblical texts. Japanese honeysuckle is native to East Asia (China, Japan, Korea) and is a classic of Chinese medicine, recorded in the Chinese materia medica tradition (Tang Ben Cao, 7th century, and elaborated by Li Shizhen in the Bencao Gangmu, 1596) and documented for Western readers in Stuart's Chinese Materia Medica (1911). It is not a plant of the biblical Mediterranean world.
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