Euonymus fimbriatus Wall.

Fairly common from 2400-3000 m, generally in shady places. The leaves and the branches are lopped for fodder. The seeds are often used as beads.

This is a common species that can be easily identified by its sharp and double-serrulate leaf margin. The species sometimes combines 4-merous flowers and fruit with 5-merous anatomy. This is a very rare character in the genus.

A small deciduous tree, bark dark-grey; branchlets reddish-brown, compressed. Leaves 2.5-9.7 x 1-6 cm, broadly ovate, subacuminate, finely serrate, fimbriate, membranous, glabrous; lateral nerves 4-6; petiole 3-8 mm long; stipules linear. 4, deciduous. Cymes umbellate; peduncles 2.5-7.5 cm long, many flowered. Flowers tetramerous. Petals 2-2.5 mm long, oblong-obovate, cream-coloured, entire. Anthers almost sessile. Style absent. Capsules 7-14 mm broad, wings 4, c. 7 mm long, tapering. Seeds ovoid, enclosed in a red aril.

Deciduous trees, to 15 m tall, ca. 45 cm d.b.h.; branches and twigs sturdy, young ones usually slender, brown or gray-brown when dry. Petiole 5-10 mm; leaf blade leathery, elliptic-ovate, 6.5-10(-15) × 4-6 cm, base semirotund, attenuate, or cuneate, margin sharply double-serrulate, sometimes combined with single sharp serrulation, apex acuminate or acute; lateral veins 5-7 pairs, disappearing before reaching margin. Peduncle from new branches only, slender, 3-4 cm, 2-4 × dichotomously branched with several to many flowers; pedicel short and slender, ca. 6 mm. Flowers 4-merous, sometimes combined with 5-merous, less than 6 mm in diam.; sepals deltoid, very small; petals yellow-green or greenish yellow, ovate-rotund. Capsule pink to red when fresh, or brown to greenish brown when dry, nearly compressed globose, ca. 1.2 cm in diam., with 4 long and flat wings, up to more than ca. 1 cm, sometimes combined with 5 wings. Seeds 2; aril orange. Fl. Apr-May, fr. Jul-Aug.

Afghanistan, Himalaya (Kashmir to Nepal, ?Sikkim).

Distribution: E. Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Sikkim and China.

Xizang [Afghanistan, India, Kashmir, Nepal, Pakistan].

2300-3600 m

Fl. Per.: April-May.

Open ground, woodlands; 2100-3300 m.

Euonymus fimbriatus var. serratus Blakelock.

Euonymus fimbriatus, also known as the fringed spindle tree, is a plant from the genus Euonymus. This tree comes from the Himalayas. This tree can grow up to 10 metres (33 ft) tall and it is deciduous.