Caprifoliaceae

Honeysuckle Family

Black Twinberry

FAMILY: Honeysuckle family (Caprifoliaceae) – Lonicera genus.

SPECIES: Black twinberry or fly honeysuckle (Lonicera involucrata (Richardson) Banks ex Spreng.).

TO UTILIZE AS FOOD: Warning! Fruits of black twinberry can cause mild to severe digestive upset. Only a few species of the Lonicera genus, including involucrata, are known to produce edible fruits. Fruits of other species range from reasonably safe to questionable to mildly poisonous. Symptoms of poisoning may include: abdominal pain, vomiting, and diarrhea. Related shrubs called snowberries (of the Symphoricarpos genus) have poisonous white fruits. Proper identification is important, and even the berries of edible species should only be eaten sparingly.

Black twinberry (L. involucrata) produces berries that range in flavor from foul to fairly good. As the name implies, the berries are black and occur in pairs. Prior to maturity in mid to late summer, the berries are dark red. Harvesting only fully ripe berries is recommended because immature berries taste awful and the flavor tends to linger. At peak ripeness, berries are sweet, black, and essentially free of foul characteristics. Black twinberries are juicy, easy to collect, abundant, and occasionally free of bugs. Fresh berries smell like a combination of grapes, melons, and squash. Simmering yields a broth that looks and smells like grape juice, but tastes very different. Equating the broth to grape juice would be a terrible injustice to grape juice. Seeds of black twinberry are soft, brown, and supported by eerie green veins woven into purplish-black pulp. Drying twinberries requires ideal conditions to have any chance of success. Low humidity is more important than temperature. A good breeze also helps. Dried berries are sweet and sticky. They look like raisins, but they certainly don’t taste like raisins. Black twinberries should be regarded with caution.

NOTES: The black twinberries I harvested were from the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in north-central New Mexico near Cowles and somewhere in central Utah that I don’t recall because it was so long ago. My first impression of black twinberries, based on the ones in Utah, was not very encouraging. The berries from New Mexico tasted much better and revived my hopes for this wild food. Differences in growing conditions could easily explain the difference in flavor. Gathering time could also be a factor. The berries from New Mexico were ripened to perfection, while those from Utah were past their prime. Very few species of the Lonicera genus produce edible fruits, so foragers considering this genus should be sure to identify things correctly.

IDENTIFICATION: The Lonicera genus is represented by approximately 30 species in the United States, of which 8 occur in the Southwest. Honeysuckles are thornless shrubs with white, yellow, or reddish-orange flowers. An “involucre” is a series of bracts surrounding a group of flowers. Those of black twinberry are large and showy.

Description of black twinberry (Lonicera involucrata): FORM thornless shrub about 1-3 meters tall; LEAVES simple; opposite; blades lance-ovate, often fused near the flowers; margins entire; surfaces normally hairy below and hairless above; FLOWERS irregular, perfect, covered with sticky hairs, and borne in pairs sharing a common stalk (peduncle) emerging from axils or terminals; bracts (involucres) subtending the flowers large, leaf-like, united, and becoming red; calyces 5-lobed and spurred at the bases; corollas 5-lobed, 1-2 cm long, yellow; stamens 5, equaling and attached to the corolla tubes; FRUITS berries black and occurring in pairs; seeds numerous; HABITAT moist canyons in the mountains; western United States; blooming May to July.

REFERENCES: Black twinberry (Lonicera involucrata): fruits Couplan (pp. 401-402) and Moerman (p. 146).