Euonymus japonicus Thunb.
Japanese spindle tree
Much-branched, glabrous, evergreen shrub or small tree up to 7 m high. Twigs green, terete or slightly 4-ribbed, smooth, often wrinkled when dry, not winged. Lvs opposite, obovate to elliptic, acute, crenate, 2.5-7 cm long; petiole 5-15 mm long. Cymes 5-many-flowered, pedunculate, dichotomous. Buds greenish, slightly 4-angled; fls 4-merous, 6-10 mm diam.; petals green, broadly elliptic, widely separated. Capsule globose, 4-celled, pink, 6-10 mm diam., exposing the orange to deep red aril after opening.
N.: well-established in Auckland City, also collected from Levin and Pukerua Bay (Wellington Province).
Japan, China, Korea 1980
Waste places, scrubland.
E. japonicus is widely cultivated, often in the variegated form. Variegated plants freely revert to the green form and all naturalised material appears to be non-variegated. It is easily distinguished from E. europaeus by the rounded unlobed capsule (Fig. 53).
