U.S. Department of Agriculture

Forest Service Research Note SE-3 17 June 1982

Multiresource Inventories- A Technique for Determining

the Distribution and Extent of Honeysuckle on Commercial

Forest Land in South Carolina

by Gerald C. Craver1

_-------

Abstract.-- Procedures for evaluating the extent and distribution of honeysuckle in South Carolina are presented. A

multiresource inventory of South Carolina’s forest resources, conducted by the Renewable Resources Evaluation

Work Unit (RRE), provides the necessary data. Timber stand

classifications and a vegetative profile study are used for

evaluation. Honeysuckle was found on over 36 percent of the

total forest land in the State and in every county. Other

estimates of the distribution, extent, and timber stand

relations are presented.

Keywords: Vegetative profile study, vegetative invent,ories,

Lonicera spp.

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In 1976, South Carolina was selected

as one of six pilot study areas in the

United States to be highlighted in the

1980 Resources Planning Act Assessment.

A major goal in the study was to quantify and describe all the vegetation

in South Carolina's forests. Data to

evaluate the occurrence and extent of

lesser vegetation were collected by

U.S. Forest Service, Renewable Resources Evaluation (RRE) field crews

throughout South Carolina during 1977

and 1978. This study is part of the

continuing forest inventory authorized

by the Forest and Rangeland Renewable

Resources Research Act of 1978. More

detailed information on the history and

purpose of the inventories is reported

by McClure and others (1979).

1

Craver is Forestry Technician, Renewable Resources Evaluation, Asheville, North Carolina.

Honeysuckle was chosen for this study

because of its relative abundance in

the State, and to show that it is

possible to make an evaluation of the

distribution and extent of any major

plant species by using the multiresource data collected.

A group of vines that vary somewhat

in their composition are generally referred to as "honeysuckle." This plant

was introduced from Asia for horticultural purposes before 1860 (Patterson

1976). During the 1930's it was

planted extensively for erosion control, and it escaped from cultivation.

In South Carolina, the most common c:

the group is Japanese honeysuckle

(Lonicera japonica Thunb.). Other

species include coral or trumpet honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens), sweet

breath of spring (Lonicera fragrantissima), and Lonicera flava (Radford and

others 1964). Honeysuckle was considered a pest by many, and the range

Southeastern Forest Experiment Station-Asheville, North Carolina
of control measures extended from herbicide treatment (Brender 1960) to

establishment of forest plantations on

areas occupied by the plant (Shipman

1962). Bruner and Shearin (1964)

finally concluded that, from a practical viewpoint, the landowner should

abandon the idea of eradicating honeysuckle and plan to control it after

tree species grow over and shade it,

thus holding it in check.

Although honeysuckle has caused

considerable damage to timber producers

in South Carolina, there are nontimber

attributes associated with the species.

Martin and others (1951) list 14 wildlife species in the United States that

use honeysuckle as a food item. For

three of these species, honeysuckle

makes up from 2 to 5 percent of the

total diet. It is so favored as food

by the white-tailed deer in the

mountains that game managers have

planted it (Nelson 1953). Food value

may be secondary to its value as cover

for birds and small mammals. One must

also consider that honeysuckle still

provides erosion control in some areas.

Esthetically, the beauty and fragrance

of its flowers in spring should be considered as a benefit.

Radford and others (1964) found that

Japanese honeysuckle and coral honeysuckle occurred in all but four counties in South Carolina, but a review of

the literature shows that little can be

found about its extent or quantification. In 1953, Nelson estimated that

honeysuckle occurred in varying densities on about 10 percent of the forest

land in the Piedmont of Georgia. Halls

and Goodrum (1961) estimated that it

competes with young timber in 10 percent of the forest land from Georgia to

Maryland.

This Note describes the distribution

of honeysuckle on commercial forest

land in South Carolina and, in some

cases, its density in terms of ft3/

acre. It should be pointed out that

all results herein deal only with the

acreage of honeysuckle on commercial

forest land. Many acres that are considered nonforest by BRE standards are

occupied by honeysuckle.

METHODS

The multiresource data were collected

at 4,038 sample plots established on

commercial forest land throughout South

Carolina. The commercial forest

acreage totals 12.5 million acres,

representing a broad range of forest

conditions (Sheffield 1979). The State

contains a small portion of the

southern Appalachian Mountains, a large

area of rolling Piedmont laced with

narrow flood plains, an extensive belt

of sandhills, and a broad expanse of

flat coastal plain interspersed with

swamps and broad flood plains. For

inventory purposes, the State is

divided into three Survey Units: (1)

Southern Coastal Plain, (2) Northern

Coastal Plain, and (3) Piedmont.

The data were collected at randomly

selected and systematically spaced

permanent plots previously used exclusively for collection of timber

data. Many of the timber-related data

are useful for evaluating lesser vegetation. For example, stand age, forest

type, physiographic class, stand size,

stand origin, and tree stocking can be

related to the presence or absence of

honeysuckle.

A vegetative profile study (Cost

1979; McClure and others 1979) was incorporated into the inventory process

to provide data on the lesser vegetation. Lesser vegetation is defined as

the foliage, flowers, berries, and

woody stems of tree seedlings, shrubs

and vines, and the leaves and stems of

grasses, grasslike plants, and forbs.

A description of the lesser vegetation

was obtained to determine its horizontal and vertical distribution, density,

diversity, and composition. Because

the study was tied to a permanent plot

sample, trends in vegetation cover can

be measured over time.

At three permanent points around the

plot sample, a 35-foot radius was

examined to define height zones of

vegetation and the stocking percent for

broad classes of plants that occurred

within the zones. The top of the

tallest tree defined the vertical limit

of the cylinder. Stocking percent was

2
expressed in terms of cubic feet of

space occupied. To estimate space

occupancy, each height zone was visually divided into individual cubic feet

of space and the proportion of those

cubes containing vegetation was estimated. A cubic foot of space was considered to be fully stocked with a

species if any portion of the cubic

foot contained a single sprig of that

species. Therefore, when ft3/acre of

honeysuckle is discussed later, it does

not necessarily mean solid cubic feet.

After the measurements were taken,

recorded, and punched into cards, the

cubic feet of space occupied by honeysuckle for each sample were calculated

by computer and per-acre estimates were

generated. Also, some comparisons of

the results were made against individual RRE Unit reports for the Piedmont,

Northern Coastal Plain, and the Southern Coastal Plain.

RESULTS

Honeysuckle was found on 4.5 million

acres of commercial forest land in

South Carolina, and in every county in

the State (table 1). A pattern develops when the percentage of this land

occupied by honeysuckle is examined

geographically (fig. 1).

The Piedmont region has 72 percent of

the total commercial forest base occupied by honeysuckle. Assuming that the

original honeysuckle planting for

erosion control was primarily on abandoned cropland, and that such land is

more likely to be invaded by the

species, explains its high occurrence

in the Piedmont (table 2). Most of the

abandoned cropland is reverting to the

forest base as pine type, and the Piedmont clearly has a much higher proportion of its total pine type occupied by

honeysuckle (table 3).

Statewide, another characteristic

that correlates with the establishment

of honeysuckle is moisture content of

the soil, with a definite species preference for rolling uplands (table 4).

RRE defines rolling uplands as welldrained lands with level areas broken

by gentle slopes and numerous small

drains, but excluding deep sands.

The percentage of tree stocking per

acre of all live trees proved to have

little effect on the occurrence of

honeysuckle, but does have a direct

effect on density level (table 5). The

sharp upward trend in density of honeysuckle in stands over 80 years is

attributable to a lessening of competition for light, moisture, and

nutrients. This has been proved in

preliminary analyses of lesser vegetation (McClure and others 1979). The

average density of honeysuckle per acre

for the State is 12,813 ft3/acre (table

5, fig. 2). These averages range from

a high of 26,176 ft3/acre for Laurens

County to a low of 1,422 ft3/acre for

Bamberg County (table 6). These two

counties also represent the third

highest and the lowest occurrence

level, respectively.

When comparisons were made with

findings of other RRE reports (Craver

1978; Sheffield 1978; Snyder 1977), the

more important results indicated that:

l Honeysuckle shows a preference for

the better sites. Ninety percent of

the total acreage supporting honeysuckle was classified as medium or good

sites (sites capable of producing 50 or

more ft3/acre annually).

l The loam-associated soils appear to

favor the establishment of honeysuckle.

Sandy-loam, loam, and clay-loam textures account for 73 percent of the

total honeysuckle acreage.

Planted acres are only slightly more

likely to be occupied by honeysuckle

than any other acreage.

0 Over one-half of the honeysuckle

acreage had been disturbed during the

10 years prior to the inventory. More

than 65 percent of this disturbance was

the result of logging and related

activities.
Table 1. --Counties ranked by percentage of commercial forest

land occupied by honeysuckle, South Carolina, 1978

County

Total

commercial

forest

Greenwood 205,672 193,091 93.9

Fairfield 386,015 359,301 93.1

Laurens 305,701 258,615 84.6

Union 272,352 229,204 84.2

Lancaster 235,604 195,268 82.9

York 264,752 * 219,310 82.8

Chester 290,619 235,929 81.2

Cherokee 154,802 124,212 80.2

Spartanburg 271,227 216,284 79.7

Abbeville 219,883 169,726 77.2

Saluda 187,758 139,145 74.1

Anderson 208,201 140,027 67.3

Newberry 315,829 208,607 66.1

McCormick 206,778 131,958 63.8

Edgefield 234,637 141,296 60.2

Greenville 278,448 160,244 57.5

Sumter 231,926 77,221 33.3

Lee 118,996 37,002 31.1

Marlboro 172,181 53,062 30.8

Aiken 488,900 149,576 30.6

Kershaw 394,680 115,483 29.3

Pickens 209,464 59,500 28.4

Allendale 158,504 39,441 24.9

Oconee 280,294 68,784 24.5

Richland 327,160 74,643 22.8

Darlington 169,683 37,930 22.4

Clarendon 217,210 47,588 21.9

Chesterfield 337,976 68,905 20.4

Calhoun 130,243 24,688 19.0

Colleton 476,667 86,158 18.1

Hampton 245,589 40,274 16.4

Williamsburg 388,860 62,093 16.0

Lexington 267,942 41,266 15.4

Barnwell 226,228 34,603 15.3

Florence 287,280 39,068 13.6

Dillon 144,331 18,144 12.6

Marion 215,743 24,782 11.5

Dorchester 271,334 29,880 11.0

Beaufort 140,531 14,834 10.6

Georgetown 374,248 39,570 10.6

Charleston 304,245 22,457 7.4

Horry 489,560 34,420 7.0

Jasper 299,706 17,423 5.8

Berkeley 577,407 32,810 5.7

Orangeburg 369,300 19,057 5.2

Bamberg 148,440 5,094 3.4

State total 12,502,906 4,537,973 36.3

-_-_----_ Acres - - __---__
q$$$f 50 TO

q;:;:;: 2 5 TO

1 ILESS

7 5 O/o

7 5 %

50%

THAN 25%

. . . . . . . . . 1 \

/\-zi\ I

I

SCALE

0 IO 2 0 5 0 4 0 5 0 6 0 Miles

IdFigure 1. --Percentage of total commercial forest land occupied by honeysuckle, South

Carolina, 1978.
6

Table 2 .--Trends in acreage of cropland in South

Carolina, by Forest Survey Unit

Southern Northern

Year State Coastal Coastal Piedmont

Plain Plain

------ Thousand acres - - - - - -

1936 7,280.7 1,826.7 2,453.8 3,000.2

1947 5,895.8 1,703.2 1,966.2 2,226.4

1958 5,259.0 1,387.7 2,062.4 1,808.g

1968 4,032.l 1,129.3 1,881.3 1,021.5

1978 3,607.O 1,156.2 1,709.l 741.7

Table 3. --Percentage of commercial forest by forest-type

groups and percentage occupied by honeysuckle,

South Carolina, 1978

Forest-type

groups

Pine type:

Acres 1,358,689 1,956,378 2,255,853

Commercial forest (%> 42.2 41.2 49.8

Acres with honeysuckle (X) 47.1 36.4 55.8

Oak-pine type:

Acres 400,727 644,217 673,600

Commercial forest (X) 12.4 13.5 14.9

Acres with honeysuckle (W) 8.3 15.4 13.8

Upland hardwood type:

Acres 579,078 896,120 1,470,056

Commercial forest (%) 18.0 18.9 32.5

Acres with honeysuckle (X) 20.0 23.5 27.2

Lowland hardwood type:

Acres 884,890 1,254,771 128,527

Commercial forest (%) 27.5 26.4 2.8

Acres with honeysuckle (%) 24.6 24.7 3.2

All types:

Total acreage 3,223,384 4,751,486 4,528,036
Table 4 .--Percentage of commercial forest by physiographic class and percentage

occupied by honeysuckle, South Carolina, 1978

I

State

Southern Coastal Northern Coastal

Plain Piedmont

Physiographic class Plain

Commercial Acres with Commercial Acres with Commercial Acres with Commercial Acres with

forest honeysuckle forest honeysuckle forest honeysuckle forest honeysuckle

____-____-_---_ ---_--- percent----_----_--_---------

Deep swamps 3.2 0.4

Broad stream margins 2.9 1.5

Narrow stream margins 9.8 13.0

Mountaintops & slopes 1.5 .7

Flatwoods 31.1 11.9

Bays and pocosins 3.5 .4

Rolling uplands 37.5 68.9

Sandhills 8.8 2.9

Other 1.7 .3

3.4

3.9

12.7

- -

45.0

2.9

9.6

20.2

2.3

2.4 6.1

4.3 4.8

15.7 9.1

_ _ _ _

37.4 51.4

.5 7.3

17.8 10.1

20.8 9.4

1.1 1.8

0.9 -- --

4.8 0.3 0.2

21.6 8.3 10.5

_ _ 4.0 1.0

44.7 - - - -

1.9 -_ - -

22.7 86.2 88.0

3.4 .l -_

- - 1.1 .3

Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
Table 5. --Weighted average density of honeysuckle on

commercial forest land, by stand age and

tree-stocking class, South Carolina, 1978

Stand age

(years)

---e-D-Average ft3/acre - - - - - - -

o-19 13,155 12,409

20-39 12,437 12,295

40-59 13,190 11,735

60-79 10,108 7,725

80+ 18,340 15,938

13,397 21,001

12,141 15,957

15,322 27,249

14,361 13,466

25,544 b

All classes 12,813 11,968 14,023 19,883

a Stocking standards used: overstocked--over 130 percent;

fully stocked-- 100 to 130 percent; medium stocked--60 to 99

percent; poorly stocked--16.7 to 59 percent; nonstocked--

less than 16.7 percent.

bNo samples were found in this class.

8
3

1

4-t-

,-c

I I I I I

LESS THAN 2,500 FT3/ACRE

Figure 2. --Average density of honeysuckle, South Carolina, 1978.

9
Table 6 .--Counties ranked by average

density of honeysuckle, South

Carolina, 1978

County Average density

ft3/acre

Laurens 26,176

Chester 24,941

York 23,526

Calhoun 22,317

Marion 22,091

Dillon 19,924

Orangeburg 19,611

Anderson 19,202

McCormick 18,796

Clarendon 17,923

Spartanburg 17,312

Greenville 17,078

Kershaw 15,138

Lee 14,725

Greenwood 14,580

Oconee 14,381

Florence 13,193

Abbeville 13,132

Fairfield 12,469

Darlington 12,060

Cherokee 11,964

Chesterfield 11,745

Edgefield 11,076

Lancaster 10,606

Marlboro 9,815

Horry 9,653

Pickens 9,493

Beaufort 9,370

Aiken 8,442

Newberry 8,399

Richland 7,633

Union 6,631

Sumter 6,317

Hampton 5,468

Saluda 5,440

Williamsburg 5,168

Colleton 4,428

Georgetown 3,722

Charleston 3,713

Allendale 3,627

Lexington 3,423

Barnwell 2,727

Berkeley 2,214

Jasper 1,993

Dorchester 1,958

Bamberg 1,422

1 0
LITERATURE CITED

Brender, E. V. Progress report on

control of honeysuckle and kudzu.

In: Proceedings of the thirteenth

annual meeting of the Southern Weed

Conference, 1960 January; Biloxi, MS:

Southern Weed Conference, Biloxi,

Mississippi; 13:187-192; 1960.

Bruner, Marlin H.; Shearin, A. T.

Planting loblolly pine on sites infested with honeysuckle. For. Res.

Ser. 12. Clemson, SC: South Carolina

Agriculture Experiment Station; 1964.

8 PO

Cost, Noel D. Ecological structure of

forest vegetation. In: Forest resource inventory workshop proceedings. vol. 1. Fort Collins, CO: Colorado State University; 1979: 29-37.

Craver, Gerald C. Forest statistics

for the northern coastal plain of

South Carolina. Resour. Bull. SE-47.

Asheville, NC: U.S. Department of

Agriculture, Forest Service, Southeastern Forest Experiment Station;

1978. 33 p.

Halls, Lowell K.; Goodrum, Phil D.

Japanese honeysuckle. In: Halls,

Lowell K.; Ripley, Thomas H.; eds.

Deer browse plants of southern forests. New Orleans, LA, and Asheville,

NC: Southern and Southeastern Forest

Experiment Stations; 1961: 38-39.

Available from: Southern Forest Experiment Station, New Orleans, LA.

McClure, Joe P.; Cost, Noel D.; Knight,

Herbert A. Multiresource invento-

. ries--a new concept for forest survey. Res. Pap. SE-191. Asheville, NC:

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Southeastern Forest

Experiment Station; 1979. 68 p.

Martin, Alexander C.; Zim, Herbert S.;

Nelson, Arnold L. American wildlife

and plants--a guide to wildlife food

habits. New York: Dover Publications,

Inc.; 1951: 365-366.

Nelson, Thomas C. Honeysuckle is a

serious problem. Res. Note SE-41.

Asheville, NC: U.S. Department of

Agriculture, Forest Service, Southeastern Forest Experiment Station;

1953. 2 p.

Patterson, David T. The history and

distribution of five exotic weeds in

North Carolina. Castenea 41(l): 177-

180; 1976.

Radford, Albert E.; Ahles, Harry E.;

Bell, C. Richie. Manual of the vascular flora of the Carolinas. Chapel

Hill, NC: University of North

Carolina Press; 1964: 989-990.

Sheffield, Raymond M. Forest statistics

for South Carolina, 1978. Resour.

Bull. SE-50. Asheville, NC: U.S.

Department of Agriculture, Forest

Service, Southeastern Forest Experiment Station; 1979. 34 p.

Shipman, R. D. Establishing forest

plantations on areas occupied by

kudzu and honeysuckle. For. Res. Ser.

5. Clemson, SC: South Carolina Agriculture Experiment Station; 1962.

19 p.

Snyder, Nolan L. Forest statistics for

the Piedmont of South Carolina.

Resour. Bull. SE-45. Asheville, NC:

U.S. Department of Agriculture,

Forest Service, Southeastern Forest

Experiment Station; 1977. 33 p.

11
The Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, is dedicated to the principle of multiple

use management of the Nation’s

forest resources for sustained

yields of wood, water, forage,

wildlife, and recreation. Through

forestry research, cooperation

with the States and private forest

owners, and management of the

National Forests and National

Grasslands, it strives-as directed by Congress-to provide

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growing Nation.

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who believes he or she has been discriminated against in

any USDA-related activity should write immediately to

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*U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 539-000/4007