Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses

WAHOO

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Euonymus atropurpureus Jacq.

Riley County, Kansas

Height: Shrubs or trees to 20(-40) feet

Family: Celastraceae - Staff Tree Family

Flowering Period: May, June, July

Also Called:

Spindle-tree.

Trunks:

Erect; bark gray, smooth or slightly flaky; wood white or yellowish white, hard.

Twigs:

Purplish brown, becoming green, rigid, usually 4-angled, not corky winged, glabrous; leaf scars half-round; pith white; buds green to purplish green, ovoid, .1 to .2 inch, apex acute, scales glabrous.

Leaves:

Deciduous, opposite, simple; petiole .4 to .8 inch; blade ovate to elliptic, rarely lanceolate, 2 to 3.6(-4.8) inches long, .4 to 2 inches wide, base acute to wedge-shaped, margins serrulate, apex acute to acuminate, lower surfaces green, puberulent along veins, upper surfaces green, glabrous.

Flowers:

Inflorescences axillary on new growth, cymes, 7-20-flowered; peduncles .8 to 2 inches, glabrous; pedicels .08 to .16 inch, glabrous. Flowers bisexual, radially symmetric; sepals 4, distinct, purple or greenish purple, ovate, .04 to .06 inch; petals 4, distinct, reddish purple to brownish purple, ovate, .12 to .16 inch long, .14 inch wide; disk 4-lobed, purple; stamens 4; pistil 1, ovary superior, 4-locular, embedded in disk; style absent; stigma 4-lobed.

Fruit:

August-October; capsules, pink, pinkish purple, or yellowish red, obovoid, deeply 4-lobed, 1 or 2 lobes sometimes aborted, .45 to .5 inch long, .6 to .67 inch wide, smooth; seeds 2 per locule, yellowish brown, ovoid to ellipsoid, .24 to .3 inch long, .16 to .2 inch, smooth; aril red, completely surrounding seed.

Habitat:

Floodplain forests, stream banks, wooded slopes, bluffs, thickets.

Distribution:

East 1/2 of Kansas

Origin:

Native

Wahoo flower