26 June—The beautiful Tatarian honeysuckle, considered a highly invasive species around here, have blossomed, releasing their magnificent heady fragrance. Shame on undocumented alien Lonicera tatarica for delighting people’s noses and other animals’ eyes and palates. Both birds and mammals eat the bush’s orange-red sugary berries and propagate the species adventitiously by excreting the seeds wherever the spirit moves their bowels.

Of course, propagation is also accomplished less intestinally by hummingbirds and insects that are attracted by the Tatarian honeysuckle’s fragrant nectar and cooperatively broadcast the sexy pollen that sticks to their bodies.

Tatarian honeysuckle berries are mildly toxic to people because of the concentration of saponins they contain in relatively small quantities. The word “saponin” comes from the Latin word “sapon” meaning soap. Remember how unpalatable and foamy the soap your mother washed your mouth with was when you uttered naughty words? That’s why we don’t have Tatarian honeysuckle ice cream. Fels-Naptha was especially unpalatable and Ivory was exceptionally foamy.

In defense of saponins, the less concentrated ones we get in fairly minute quantities from foods like beans and oats offer health benefits like lowering cholesterol and supporting immunity. From disease, not the crimes the Supreme Court has saponized presidents from.

While not toxic to creatures of the wild, Tatarian honeysuckle is nevertheless considered by presumed experts to be junk food for them because the berries provide virtually no essential proteins, fats, or nutrients. But the creatures savor the berries because of the sugar content. What else is new? You can’t beat Mother Nature’s marketing strategy, even for invasive species. Evidently, though, native plant species provide better nutrition for the animals. In all events, we’ll avoid comparisons with or comment on the SCOTUS-saponized glutton-in-chief who gorges on junk food yet is still alive.

The State of Connecticut considers Tatarian honeysuckle—among scores of plants specified in the statute, including ones you wouldn’t believe, like white poplar and other honeysuckle species—so invasive that state law—CGS § 22a-381d—strictly prohibits importing, moving, selling, purchasing, transplanting, cultivating, or distributing any reproductive portions of the plant, including seeds. “Any person who violates the provisions of this section shall be fined not more than one hundred dollars per plant,” the statute concludes . . .