Euonymus japonicus L. f.

Japanese Spindle Tree

Shrub

Perennial

Vascular

Japanese Spindle Tree is an introduced evergreen shrub or small tree in the Bittersweet family (Celastraceae). It is native to Japan, but is cultivated and occasionally persists or escapes in Alabama. Japanese Spindle Tree can be found around old home sites, on roadsides, and in disturbed woodlands. It is an erect shrub or small tree, 3-8 feet in height. The bark is smooth and gray-brown in color. Young stems are terete, not striate, green in color, and glabrous. Leaves are petiolate, opposite in arrangement, ovate or obovate in outline, glabrous, thick and leathery in texture, with margins that are crenate above the middle and entire towards the base. The leaves are dark green in color or variously variegated with yellow or white in some cultivated forms. Flowers are produced in axillary branched cymes. Individual flowers have 4 green, orbicular sepals, 4 greenish-yellow orbicular petals, and 4 stamens. The fruit is a brownish, 4-lobed capsule. Japanese Spindle Tree is similar to Winter Creeper (Euonymus fortunei (Turczaninow) Handel-Mazzetti), another introduced species. Winter Creeper is usually a decumbent vine-like shrub that climbs trees or rocks by aerial roots. It has typically smaller leaves that are crenate nearly to the base. Japanese Spindle Tree is available from many nurseries. It is planted as a specimen shrub (variegated forms) or as a hedge or screen. It is susceptible to numerous pests (Euonymus scale, powdery mildew, mites, leaf miners, aphids, mealybugs, crown gall, and fungal leaf spots), and has fallen out of favor as a landscape plant.—A. Diamond

This species was first collected as a naturalized element of the Alabama flora in 2012 by A. Diamond in Bulter County. (Phytoneuron 201-47: 1-13).

Not Native

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