Lonicera pyrenaica L.
Eng.: Pirenean honeysuckle. Spa.: Madreselva rupícola. Fre.: Chèvrefeuille des Pyrinées.
Shrub erect, not climbing or sarmentose, deciduous, hermaphrodite, up to 1.5 m in height. Main stems and older branches with brown-greyish bark, slightly fissured. Young branches and branchlets with smooth bark, greyish, glabrous. Leaves (1.5-6 × 0.4-2 cm) opposite, petiolate, always free, not fused, narrowly obovate or oblanceolate, with acute apex and decurrent at the base, with entire margin; glabrous, matt green on the upper side and lighter and green-greyish with bluish tints on the underside. Flowers borne in pairs on the axil of the leaves, with a single peduncle of about 2 cm; they are quite different from flowers of the other North African honeysuckles, since their shape is campanulate and ± regular, not tubular and irregular. Calyx very small, ovoid, with 5 subacute lobes. Corolla white with reddish tints on the outside; with 5 equal petals, shorter than the corolla’s campanulate tube. Stamens 5. Style and stamens slightly exserted. Fruit a rounded berry, reddish-brown.
Flowering:
June to July.
Fruiting:
August to September.
Habitat:
Rocky cuttings of the high calcareous mountain, rarely also in siliceous rocky outcrops, from 2,000-3,200 m in altitude. From semiarid to subhumid bioclimate, on supramediterranean and oromediterranean floors.
Distribution:
Western Mediterranean: mountains of the NE of Spain, French Pyrenees, Mallorca and in North Africa on the mountains of the Middle and High Atlas.
Conservation status:
Fairly rare species with a small distribution area. Currently, it has not been assessed at a global level in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. In the Livre Rouge de la flore vasculaire du Maroc (Fennane, 2021) it has been considered as Least Concern (LC).
