Both Lonicera

Lonicera maackii vs Lonicera morrowii

These two are not on this page because a keyword tool suggested them. They are here because our own identification model genuinely mistook one for the other, on real photographs, 5 times. We publish the rate, and then we tell you what actually separates them.

Confused 5x by our model Same genus Lonicera Method published

Side by sidefigs. a and b

Lonicera maackii, photographed by Steven Bodzin
fig. a Steven Bodzin, CC BY 4.0

Lonicera maackii

Amur honeysuckle
Lonicera morrowii, photographed by Howard Williams
fig. b Howard Williams, CC BY-SA 4.0

Lonicera morrowii

Morrow's honeysuckle

How often our model gets it wrong measured, not estimated

When the plant was The model said How often
Lonicera morrowii Lonicera maackii 5 of 20 (25%)

Measured on 38,299 openly licensed, research-grade photographs. Full method and dataset.

What actually separates themon the record

Family Both Caprifoliaceae. The family does not separate them.
Genus Both Lonicera. Congeners, which is why this is hard.
Flowering Peaks in May versus May. Timing does not separate them. (n = 3,644 and 1,243.)

What we do not have yet: the diagnostic morphological character that a botanist would key on, from a source we can cite. We are not going to invent one. Until we have it, this page tells you the two are genuinely confusable, how often, and what the taxonomy and the flowering data do and do not settle.

Both recordsfull pages