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Euonymus fortunei
Also called Fortune's Spindle, Wintercreeper, Climbing Euonymus, Dwarf Euonymus, Spreading Euonymus, Winter Creeper Spindletree, Euofor
In Singapore: Fortune's Spindle, Spindle Tree, Wintercreeper Euonymus (Grown in Singapore)
Winter creeper is an evergreen shrub that climbs by small rootlets when given support, or spreads along the ground as a groundcover. It is grown for its tough, adaptable foliage, and in parts of the eastern United States it is an invasive plant to avoid.
Euonymus fortunei, the spindle, 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. E. fortunei is highly invasive and damaging in the United States, causing the death of trees and forest in urban areas.
Euonymus fortunei is widely cultivated as an ornamental plant, with numerous cultivars selected for such traits as yellow, variegated and slow, dwarfed growth. It is used as a groundcover or a vine to climb walls and trees. The following cultivars have gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit:
'Emerald Gaiety'
It has an extensive native range, including many parts of China (from sea level to 3400 m elevation), India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Laos, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. It has also been introduced to North America as an ornamental, and is considered an invasive species throughout much of the Eastern United States. It resembles Euonymus japonicus, which is also widely cultivated but is a shrub, without climbing roots. It also is related to a variety of similar species, including Euonymus theifolius, or Euonymus vagans and also a number of named "species" which are found only in cultivation and better treated as cultivars. Its habitats include woodlands, scrub, and forests.
Burningbush · Burningbush · Fleshy Flowered Spindle Tree · Euonymus cornutus · Spindle · Hamilton's spindletree · Japanese spindletree · Large Leaved Spindle · Korean Spindle Tree · Corktree · Siberian Spindletree
[Contains information from Leaf Area Index (LAI) and Heritage Trees from data.gov.sg (National Parks Board), made available under the terms of the Singapore Open Data Licence version 1.0]
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Euonymus fortunei by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
