When I saw this post by UBC Botanical Garden as the Botany Photo of the Day, I immediately thought of the Hearts-a-bustin plant which grows in the eastern states of the U.S. However, the BOPD post was of the Korean spindle tree (Euonymus oxyphyllus). Here’s a photo of Hearts-a-bustin (Euonymus americanus):
Hearts-a-bustin
Hearts-a-bustin is frequently called Strawberry bush. The Korean spindle tree is also commonly known (in English) as the Japanese spindle tree since it is native to Korea, China and Japan. The two images above are of the plants’ seeds — not the flower as some people have assumed. An observable difference between the two plants is the covering above the seeds — which is smooth for E. oxyphyllus and knobby for E. americanus.
The next two photos show the plants as they are blooming.
Euonymus oxyphyllus
[Above photo taken by KENPEI and obtained through Wikimedia Commons.]
Hearts-a-bustin
This next comparison image shows a close view of each plant’s flower. You can see how similar they look.
Euonymus americanus and Euonymus oxyphyllus
[Above photo on the right taken by KENPEI and obtained through Wikimedia Commons.]
Conduct some Internet searches of your own to compare the leaves, plant shape and size, and the inflorescence arrangement of these two different Euonymus. I’ll leave you with an illustration of Euonymus oxyphyllus.
