Euonymus latifolius (L.) Miller
Eng.: Large-leaved Spindle. Spa.: Bonetero de hoja ancha. Fre.: Fusain. Ara.: Arquidjet er rahab.
Shrub or small tree, up to 8 m in height, deciduous, hermaphrodite, with large leaves, but spaced; therefore its foliage is sparse. Stems erect, with long and flexuous branches. Trunk and older branches with brown-grey to reddish-brown bark, fissured in older specimens. Branchlets striated, subtetragonal or cylindrical, glabrous, light green. Leaves large (6-15 × 3.5-10 cm), broadly oblong-elliptic, acuminate or with a rounded apex ending in a small tip, with a finely and irregularly serrulate margin, glabrous, green on both sides, opposite, with petiole 5-11 mm. Inflorescences in axillary cymes, with long peduncle (5-10 cm) and 5-10 pentamerous flowers (5-8 mm diameter), greenish-yellow, with pedicel 10-15 mm. Calyx with lobes 1-1.5 mm, suborbicular and subacute. Corolla with petals 1.7-4 mm, ovate-triangular, opened in star-shape. Stamens 5, very short, on a green 5-lobed nectariferous disc. Fruit a fleshy capsule, reddish-pink, 7-10 × 15-20 mm, hanging on a long peduncle, with 5 depressed locules arranged radially, dehiscent into 5 valves. Seeds ovoid, 5-6.5 mm, smooth, brown, with an orange aryl.
Flowering:
April to June.
Fruiting:
September to November.
Habitat:
Forests (cedar and Quercus faginea) of mountains with subhumid to hyperhumid bioclimate, mainly on supramediterranean floors.
Distribution:
The sensu lato species grows in the Mediterranean and Iranian-Turkestani regions; the European and Asian varieties have flowers with pinkish-orange petals, and even red in Europe. In NW Africa the variety kabylicus Debeaux has been described, with greenish-yellow petals that seem to coincide with those of the Spanish population recently discovered in Sierra de Cazorla (in the Cuenca mountains) and in the Gúdar and Javalambre mountains in Teruel. In Morocco and Algeria it is a rare species, but it is scattered especially in the cedar forests. Morocco: mainly in the western Rif and northern Middle Atlas, very rare in the High Atlas (Jebel Tahallatin, SE of Demnat); Algeria: massifs of Djurdjura and Babor (Kabylia) and Atlas of Blida.
Conservation status:
A relatively common and widespread species in Eurasia. Var. kabylicus, from the western Mediterranean, is very rare and localised. Currently, it has not been assessed at a global level in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. In Algeria it is included in the List of protected non cultivated flora (Executive Decree 12-03 on 4-Jan-2012).