Spindle Tree (Euonymus fortunei)
Description
Euonymus fortunei (common names spindle or Fortune's spindle, winter creeper or wintercreeper) is a species of flowering plant in the family Celastraceae, native to east Asia, including China, Korea, the Philippines and Japan. It is named after the plant explorer Robert Fortune. It is an evergreen shrub which grows as a vine if provided with support. As such it grows to 20 m (66 ft), climbing by means of small rootlets on the stems, similar to ivy (an example of convergent evolution, as the two species are not related). Like ivy, it also has a sterile non-flowering juvenile climbing or creeping phase, which on reaching high enough into the crowns of trees to get more light, develops into an adult, flowering phase without climbing rootlets. The leaves are arranged in opposite pairs, elliptic to elliptic-ovate, 2-6 cm long and 1-3 cm broad, with finely serrated margins. The flowers are inconspicuous, 5 mm in diameter, with four small greenish-yellow petals. The fruit is a four-lobed pale green pod-like berry, which splits open to reveal the fleshy-coated orange seeds, one seed in each lobe.
Taxonomic tree
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Domain: Eukarya
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Kingdom: Plantae
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Phylum: Magnoliophyta
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Class: Magnoliopsida
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Order: Celastrales
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Family: Celastraceae
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Genus: Euonymus
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