A warning about yellow jessamine

Hello, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. If you’re new to the South, you need to know that yellow jessamine is extremely poisonous; children who grew up sucking the invasive Asian honeysuckle nectar from those flowers must be warned not to confuse these two vines. Mammals tend to avoid it, so it's a good “deer-proof plant,” but as it’s evergreen, occasionally horses in pastures will graze on it in winter. It’s an important early source of nectar and pollen for native insects, including native bees. When we think of bees, our minds instinctively go to honey bees, they’re not native, they didn’t evolve with this plant, and it’s very toxic to them. Fortunately, they don’t seem to preferentially seek it out, and the native red maples and red buds, which are actually pink, and introduced plants, are blooming along with them.