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Winged Euonymus

Euonymus alatus

Summary 6

Euonymus alatus, known variously as winged spindle, winged euonymus or burning bush, is a species of flowering plant in the family Celastraceae, native to central and northern China, Japan, and Korea.

Distribution 7

More info for the terms: density, presence

North America: Winged burning bush is nonnative in North America, where it occurs from Ontario south to Missouri, Kentucky, and South Carolina and east to New Hampshire [27]. Booth and Wright [5] noted its presence in west-central Montana in 1962, but it was not listed in a 1991 flora of the same area [28]. Plants Database provides a distributional map of winged burning bush and varieties in North America.

Other continents: Winged burning bush's native distribution extends from central China to northeastern Asia [5,19,33,42,49]. Besides central and eastern China, winged burning bush occurs in Korea, the Sakhalin islands of eastern Russia, and Japan [15]. It was introduced in Europe and North America as an ornamental [10,15].

Invasion history in the United States: Winged burning bush was first introduced in the United States in the 1860s [10]. It has escaped cultivation or become invasive mostly in the northeastern United States.

Northeast: Winged burning bush was well established in some parts of the Northeast by the late 20th century. It had established near Palestine in Wirt County, West Virginia, by 1977 [42]. In a 1985 Michigan flora, winged burning bush was noted as rarely escaping cultivation but spreading "occasionally" into woodlands, thickets, and uncultivated urban and rural areas [49]. In 1991, Gleason and Cronquist [19] described it as widely cultivated but only "locally escaped from cultivation" in the Northeast. By the turn of the 21st century, winged burning bush was locally invasive in many northeastern states. A 2002 fact sheet describes winged burning bush as most invasive in Connecticut, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Illinois [33]. A 2006 review describes 21 states as "invaded" [9].

Midwest: As of 2009, winged burning bush was noted as invasive in the Midwest only in Illinois, where it was first reported as "naturalized" in Coles County in 1973 [11]. By 1984, winged burning bush was reported from 13 Illinois counties [12]. In 1989, winged burning bush was the dominant woody species invading the Waterworks Ravine Hill Prairie, where woody species were historically rare. Most other invading woody species were native. Mean density (and frequency) of winged burning bush was 7,809 stem/ha (66%) [2].

Ecological threat in the united states 8

It threatens a variety of habitats including forests, coastal scrublands and prairies where it forms dense thickets, displacing many native woody and herbaceous plant species. Hundreds of seedlings are often found below the parent plant in what is termed a “seed shadow.”

Sources and Credits

  1. (c) Chercheur101, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA), http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Arbuste1-Euonymus_alatus.jpg
  2. (c) Matt Lavin, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA), https://www.flickr.com/photos/plant_diversity/7249131706/
  3. (c) peganum, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA), https://www.flickr.com/photos/peganum/4021440013/
  4. (c) Steven J. Baskauf, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), http://bioimages.vanderbilt.edu/gq/baskauf/geual8-wp30578.jpg
  5. (c) Matt Lavin, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA), http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Euonymus_alatus_%E2%80%94_Matt_Lavin_001.jpg
  6. Adapted by Kate Wagner from a work by (c) Wikipedia, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euonymus_alatus
  7. Public Domain, http://eol.org/data_objects/24636010
  8. (c) Unknown, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), http://eol.org/data_objects/22733923

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