Euonymus fortunei |
Celastraceae |
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climbing euonymus, climbing spindle-tree, winter creeper |
bittersweet family, staff-tree family |
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Habit | Herbs, shrubs, trees, or vines, annual or perennial, deciduous or evergreen, synoecious, dioecious, or polygamomonoecious. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Leaves | persistent; petiole 5–10 mm; blade lanceolate, ovate, elliptic, to broadly obovate-elliptic, 1–9 × 0.5–5 cm, base cuneate, acute, obtuse, to rounded, margins crenate-serrate, apex obtuse, acute, or acuminate. |
alternate, subopposite, opposite, whorled, or fascicled, simple; stipules absent or present; petiole present or absent; blade margins serrate, dentate, spiny, or entire; venation pinnate, palmate, or 1-veined, sometimes obscure. |
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Inflorescences | axillary, 5–15-flowered. |
unisexual or bisexual, terminal or axillary, cymes, racemes, panicles, thyrses, or fascicles, or flowers solitary. |
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Flowers | sepals 4; petals 4, white to pale green, oblong, 3–4 × 2–3 mm; stamens 4; ovary smooth. |
bisexual or unisexual, radially symmetric or weakly asymmetric; perianth and androecium hypogynous or perigynous; hypanthium free, completely adnate to ovary, or absent; sepals (3–)4–5[–7], distinct or connate proximally; petals 0 or (3–)4–5[–7], distinct; nectary present, rudimentary, or absent; stamens 3–5[–10], distinct, free or adnate to nectary; anthers dehiscing by longitudinal slits; staminodes 0 or [4–]5[–7]; pistil 1, 1–5-carpellate, ovary superior often embedded in nectary to 1/2 inferior, 1–5-locular, placentation axile or parietal; ovules 1–2[–4] or 100–2000+ per locule, anatropous; styles 0, 1, or 3, connate proximally; stigmas 2–5. |
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Fruits | capsules, dehiscence loculicidal, drupes, or nutlike (small, hard-walled, indehiscent, 1-locular, and 1-seeded) [berries or samaras]. |
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Capsules | straw colored to orange, globose, 6–8 mm diam., unlobed or very shallowly 4-lobed, lobes clearly connate, surface smooth. |
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Seeds | ellipsoid, 4–6 mm; aril orange. |
1, 2, 40–70, or 100–2000+ per locule, often winged or covered by brightly colored pulpy aril. |
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Vines | to 20 m. Stems prostrate to erect, climbing by adventitious roots; young branches terete, not corky winged. |
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2n | = 32. |
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Euonymus fortunei |
Celastraceae |
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Phenology | Flowering summer; fruiting summer–fall. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Habitat | Moist woods, stream banks, riverbanks, disturbed areas. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Elevation | 0–300 m. (0–1000 ft.) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Distribution |
AL; AR; CT; DC; DE; GA; IL; IN; KS; KY; MA; MD; MI; MO; MS; NC; NJ; OH; PA; RI; SC; TN; TX; VA; WI; ON; e Asia [Introduced in North America]
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North America; Mexico; Central America; South America; West Indies; Eurasia; Africa; Atlantic Islands; Indian Ocean Islands; Pacific Islands; Australia |
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Discussion | Euonymus fortunei is widely planted as an ornamental and has escaped widely. Plants grow horizontally until they encounter a vertical surface like a rock, wall, or tree, which they then climb using adventitious roots. They sometimes form dense mats over other vegetation, excluding other plants. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Genera ca. 100, species ca. 1400 (12 genera, 34 species in the flora). As treated here, Celastraceae include Hippocrateaceae Jussieu and Parnassiaceae Martinov. Both DNA sequence data and morphology place Hippocratea and its relatives nested within Celastraceae as subfam. Hippocrateoideae Lindley (M. P. Simmons et al. 2001; Simmons 2004, 2004b). Placement of Parnassiaceae (Lepuropetalon and Parnassia) is less certain. The group has long been associated with Saxifragaceae (such as by J. D. Hooker 1865b, A. Cronquist 1981), but broad-scale phylogenetic analyses utilizing DNA sequences have aligned Parnassiaceae with Celastraceae, either as a sister family or as a basal member of Celastraceae (M. W. Chase et al. 1993; Simmons et al. 2001b; Simmons 2004; Zhang L. B. and Simmons 2006). Including Parnassiaceae within Celastraceae follows APGIII (Angiosperm Phylogeny Group 2009). Glossopetalon (sometimes under the illegitimate name Forsellesia Greene), included within Celastraceae in many local floras in North America, belongs in Crossosomataceae (R. F. Thorne and R. Scogin 1978; V. Sosa and M. W. Chase 2003); see Flora of North America North of Mexico, volume 9, page 9. Some members of Celastraceae are of economic importance. Species of Celastrus, Euonymus, Maytenus, and Paxistima are grown as ornamentals, and Euonymus, Hippocratea, and Maytenus have medicinal uses. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
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Key |
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Source | FNA vol. 12, p. 123. | FNA vol. 12, p. 111. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Parent taxa | Celastraceae > Euonymus | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sibling taxa | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Synonyms | Elaeodendron fortunei, E. hederaceus, E. kiautschovicus | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Name authority | (Turczaninow) Handel-Mazzetti: Symb. Sin. 7: 660. (1933) — (as Evonymus) | R. Brown | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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