Winged Burning Bush (Euonymus alatus)

Taxonomy

Domain	Eukarya
Kingdom	Plantae
Phylum	Magnoliophyta
Class	Magnoliopsida
Superorder	Rosanae
Order	Celastrales
Family	Celastraceae
Genus	Euonymus

Scientific Name

Euonymus alatus

Scientific Name Synonyms

Euonymus alata

Common Name

winged burning bush

Miller, J.H., E.B, Chambliss, N.J. Loewenstein. 2010. A Field Guide for the Identification of Invasive Plants in Southern Forests. General Technical Report SRS-119. Asheville, NC. United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service. 126 p.

Plant

Deciduous, wing-stemmed, bushy shrub to 12 feet (4 m) in height, multiple stemmed and much branched. Canopy broad and leafy. Small obovate leaves green and turning bright scarlet to purplish red in fall. Paired purple fruit in fall on new growth.

Stem

Four corky wings or ridges appearing along young lime-green squarish twigs with wings becoming wider with age. Numerous opposite branches, with bases encircled by corky rings. Larger branches and bark becoming light gray.

Leaves

Opposite, obovate, and thin, 1 to 2 inches (2.5 to 5 cm) long and 0.4 to 0.8 inch (1 to 2 cm) wide. Tips tapering to an acute point. Margins finely crenate. Both surfaces smooth and hairless. Dark green with whitish midvein above and light green beneath, turning bright crimson to purplish red in fall. Petioles 0.04 to 0.16 inch (1 to 4 mm) long.

Flowers

April to May. Axillary pairs of small flowers at the ends of a Y-shaped 1-inch (2.5-cm) stem. Flowers inconspicuous, 0.2 to 0.3 inch (6 to 8 mm) across, greenish yellow, 5 lobed, pistil elongating as fruit forms.

Fruit and seeds

August to January. Dangling paired (or single) reddish capsules in leaf axils, turning purple and splitting in fall to reveal an orange fleshy-covered seed.

Ecology

Shade tolerant and invading forest understories, pastures, and coastal shrub lands. Colonizes by root suckers and spreads by animal-dispersed seeds.

Resembles

Resembles the threatened and endangered native burning bush (E. atropurpureus Jacq.), which has erect-hairy lower leaf surfaces and petioles 0.3 to 0.8 inch (8 to 20 mm) long. Also resembles the larger-leaved species of blueberry (Vaccinium spp.), but their leaves are alternate. Possibly resembles rusty blackhaw (Viburnum rufidulum Raf.), which also has opposite leaves but distinguished by their larger size and leathery texture. Dormant twigs may resemble winged elm (Ulmus alata Michx.) and sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua L.), which are usually 2 winged instead of 4 winged.

History and use

Introduced from Northeast Asia in the 1860s. Widely planted as an ornamental and for highway beautification.

Distribution

Found throughout the region except AR, TX, and OK with dense infestations in KY and VA.

Management strategies

Do not plant. Remove prior plantings, and control sprouts and seedlings. Bag and dispose of fruit in a dumpster or burn.
Treat when new plants are young to prevent seed formation.
Pull, cut, and treat when fruit are not present.
Minimize disturbance within miles of where this plant occurs, and anticipate wider occupation when plants are present before disturbance.
Repeated cutting to groundline commonly recommended for control.
Manually pull new seedlings and tree wrench saplings when soil is moist, ensuring removal of all roots.

Recommended control procedures

Thoroughly wet all leaves with Arsenal AC* or Vanquish* as a 1-percent solution in water (4 ounces per 3-gallon mix) with a surfactant (April to October). When safety to surrounding vegetation is desired, use Garlon 3A or Garlon 4 as a 3-percent solution (12 ounces per 3-gallon mix).
For stems too tall for foliar sprays, apply Garlon 4 as a 20-percent solution (5 pints per 3-gallon mix) in a labeled basal oil product, vegetable oil, kerosene, or diesel fuel (where permitted) to young bark as a basal spray (January to February or May to October); or undiluted Pathfinder II may be used. Or cut large stems and immediately treat the stump tops with one of the following herbicides in water with a surfactant: Arsenal AC* as a 5-percent solution (20 ounces per 3-gallon mix) or when safety to surrounding vegetation is desired, a glyphosate herbicide as a 20-percent solution (5 pints per 3-gallon mix). ORTHO Brush-B-Gon, Enforcer Brush Killer, and Vine-X are effective undiluted for treating cut-stumps and available in retail garden stores (safe to surrounding plants).

* Nontarget plants may be killed or injured by root uptake.

Images

May	October	November	December
April	April	April

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