Blue honeysuckle ( Lonicera cearulea L. subs. edulis ) berry; A rich source of some nutrients and their differences among four different cultivars

Abstract

Organically grown blue honeysuckle berries have become extremely popular in the last few years, mainly because of their taste and high ascorbic acid content. With the spectrophotometer and aid of high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) coupled with mass spectrophotometry (MS) we compare the content of organic and ascorbic acids, sugars, individual phenolics, total phenolics, saponins and tannins, of four blue honeysuckle berry cultivars. On average the cultivar 'Aurora' was the biggest in terms of weight and size, with the highest sugar (2585.45 mg/100 g) and the lowest organic acid (655.46 mg/100 g) contents. Conversely, the cultivar 'Honey Bee' was the smallest and had the highest ascorbic acid (25.77 mg/100 g) and saponin (640.79 mg/100 g), but the lowest sugar (1557.37 mg/100 g) contents. Cultivars 'Borgalis' and 'Tundra' had intermediate weight and size, with high and low contents of other identified compounds.