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Euonymus europaeus L.

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Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Euonymus europaeus' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/euonymus/euonymus-europaeus/). Accessed 2025-04-30.

Family

  • Celastraceae

Genus

Common Names

  • Common Spindle-tree

Glossary

aril
Fleshy outgrowth produced at the base of a seed (as in e.g. Taxus). Often acts to attract animal seed-dispersal agents.
ovate
Egg-shaped; broadest towards the stem.

References

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Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Euonymus europaeus' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/euonymus/euonymus-europaeus/). Accessed 2025-04-30.

Euonymus europaeus

Fruit and last leaves on the photographer's tree of Euonymus europaeus, St Leonards-on-Sea; 8th December 2013. Image Owen Johnson.

A deciduous shrub or small tree from 10 to 25 ft high, forming a spreading, bushy head, often naked towards the ground, not downy in any part. Leaves narrowly oval, sometimes inclined to ovate or obovate, 1 to 31⁄2 in. long, 1⁄3 to 11⁄4 in. wide, slender-pointed, tapered at the base, minutely toothed; stalk 1⁄4 to 1⁄2 in. long. Cymes slender-stalked, 1 to 11⁄2 in. long, usually three- or five-flowered (sometimes more); flowers yellowish green, 1⁄2 in. across; petals and stamens four. Fruit red, four-lobed, 1⁄2 to 3⁄4 in. across; aril orange-coloured.

Native of Europe, including the British Isles. There is no more beautiful or striking object in autumn than a fine spindle-tree well laden with fruit. It has a number of varieties, some distinguished by the fruit, others by the foliage. One may frequently see it in gardens as a small tree with a well-formed single trunk, and Loudon records trees 25 to 35 ft high in Scotland. The wood is hard, and was in earlier times much favoured for making spindles, hence the popular name.

From the Supplement (Vol. V)

This species is not confined to Europe as stated in the original impression of the present edition (and earlier editions). It also occurs in Asia Minor and the Caucasus.

cv. ‘Red Cascade’. – This fruits well even when grown in isolation.

† E. velutinus (Meyer) Fischer & Meyer E. europaeus var. velutinus Meyer – Near to E. europaeus, but branchlets, leaf undersides, inflorescences and fruits downy. Native of the Caucasus, Soviet Central Asia and Iran; introduced by Roy Lancaster and Mrs Ala from the Elburz mountains in 1972.

Euonymus europaeus

The fruiting display of the wild Euonymus europaeus is seldom exploited as it deserves to be in garden settings. St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex (outside the photographer's back door); 6th December 2013. Image Owen Johnson.

Euonymus europaeus

The same Euonymus europaeus in St Leonards-on-Sea on Boxing Day 2013, after the fall of the last leaves but before the resident female Blackbird had taken much interest in the fruit. Image Owen Johnson.

Euonymus europaeus

Euonymus europaeus in flower at White House Farm, Kent, UK. 17 June 2023. Image Tom Christian.

Euonymus europaeus

The golden-leaved spindle Euonymus europaeus 'Aureus' is a rare but eye-catching garden selection. Longstock Park, Hampshire, UK; June 2023. Image Owen Johnson.

Euonymus europaeus

A bush of Euonymus europaeus in Malton, North Yorkshire, UK, covered by the webs of the Spindle Ermine moth Yponomeuta cagnagella, and completely defoliated by the caterpillars, May 2024. This specimen suffers this way every year, but refoliates once the larvae have pupated. Image John Grimshaw.

Euonymus europaeus

Larvae of the Spindle Ermine (Malton, UK, May 2024). Image John Grimshaw.

'Aldenhamensis'

Fine form of the spindle-tree which appeared in the Hon. Vicary Gibbs’ garden at Aldenham, Herts. It is distinguished by the brilliant pink and larger size of the fruits, which are also, on account of the longer stalks, more pendulous than in the type. It received an Award of Merit on 17th October 1922.

'Atropurpureus'

Young shoots and leaves suffused with purple; autumn colour crimson.

'Aucubifolius'

Leaves blotched with yellow; rather unsightly.

f. albus (West.) Rehd

Fruits white. Although this does not produce the rich effect of the type, it is very striking in contrast with it.

Euonymus europaeus f. albus

The fruits of Euonymus europaeus f. albus are rather subtle, and do not help plants to stand out from a distance like the typical form. RHS Garden Rosemoor, Devon, UK. 18 September 2024. Image Tom Christian.

'Red Cascade'

A free-fruiting form raised by Messrs Jackman and given an Award of Merit in 1949.

var. angustifolius Reichb

Leaves narrow-lanceolate.

var. intermedius Gaud.

Synonyms
E. europaeus var. macrophyllus Reichb

Described by Gaudin in Flora Helvetica, in the year 1828, this, perhaps the finest of all the forms of E. europaeus, has not spread in cultivation anything like so much as its merits entitle it to have done. It was brought into notice in the autumn of 1919, when Sydney Morris of Earlham Hall, Norwich, exhibited it in full fruit at a show in Norwich, and again in 1920, when, on 5 th October, he obtained from the Royal Horticultural Society an Award of Merit for it as a beautiful fruit-bearing shrub. It is distinguished chiefly by the large ovate leaves, sometimes rounded at the base, which in a figure in Reichenbach’s Icones Florae Germanicae, t. 309, are shown as much as 3{3/4} in. long and 1{3/4} in. wide; they are even longer and broader on specimens in Kew Herbarium collected in Italy. Mr Morris’s plant was also remarkable for the enormous crops of fruits it habitually produced and for their bright red colour and large size. In Switzerland this variety is found in Valais and Tessino, intermingled with the type, with which it is said to intergrade.

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