Fly Honeysuckle

We have only one honeysuckle native to the UK and that is the Woodbine, Lonicera periclymenum. There is a second species,the Fly Honeysuckle, Lonicera xylosteum, very rare and confined as a wild plant to Sussex. This was, until recently, also regarded as a British native but recent research has suggested that it it is probably an escape from cultivation.

Fly Honeysuckle is a very rare plant confined in Britain to Sussex

Given its rarity I was astonished to find a plant in Stefen Hill Pocket Park, when paying a visit earlier today.

The plant in Stefen Hill Pocket Park is currently in flower.

18 May, 2020

It is a non-climbing plant and rather undistinguished when in flower. It compensates for this by bearing large scarlet berries and I'll be looking out for these in two or three month's time. Although the plant is listed  in Hilliers' Manual of Trees and Shrubs I suspect it is rarely grown in gardens, so its presence in the pocket park is something of a mystery. It is frequently bird-sown elsewhere but could that be the case here?


Other than the Fly Honeysuckle I saw nothing remarkable today. An old tree stump demanded investigation and I put myself forward for the job.

Decaying tree stumps are always worth investigating.

Stefen Hill Pocket park, 18 May, 2020

Under loose bark was a specimen of the spider Harpactea hombergi - very quick, very elusive, impossible to photograph. Nuctenea umbratica was a different matter. Its cryptic coloration almost made me overlook it and, having taken its photograph, I carefully eased it back into its  original position.

Nuctenea umbratica is common but nocturnal, and so well concealed that it

is not often seen. Stefen Hill Pocket Park, 18 May, 2020

Nuctenea is a curious spider, darkly sinister in appearance. It is nocturnal and relies on a very strong and sticky web which will hold an insect secure for several hours until darkness has fallen, when it will emerge from its retreat and deal with any victims. It insinuates itself beneath bark or, indeed, panels of garden fencing. It is by no means as flattened as the remarkable 'wrap-around spider', an Australian species which wraps itself around a branch 'concealed in full view'.

The Australian Dolophenes conifera is known as the Wrap-around Spider. It is related to Nuctenea.

Both the Harpactea and the Nuctenea were new to the pocket park.

The Indian Bean Tree, Catalpa bignonoides, has long and thin - but

usually empty - seed pods. Beside Stefen Hill Pocket Park, 18 May, 2020

I set off home, momentarily distracted by Long-tailed Tits as they flitted through an Indian Bean Tree in an garden adjacent to the park.