"Mary Fisher" wrote in message
t...

John - Pa. wrote in message
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The best of a nasty one. To quote another web site;
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By this description, the berry location along the vine makes this the
oriental variety. It is a real P-i-t-A, and I spend a lot of time each
spring trying to keep it under control along our wooded boundary. It
can be pretty at this time of year, however.


It's VERY pretty and a lovely picture, thanks. I'd never heard of
bittersweet but have saved your shot.

Mary


The berries reminded me of a shrub we bought for our hedge, we call it
spindleberry. I couldn't containe my curiosity so looked it up, this too is
a celastrus: Euonymus cornutus var. quinquecornutus Celastraceae (!) But I
don't think it's a pita, we love it for its autumn coloured leaves and the
berries - although I tried tasting one the other day and it's not at all
juicy, just very hard. I don't know if birds eat them. The wood is very hard
and good to carve but it takes a long time for even the trunk to grow big
enough to give a suitable chunk for carving.

Some say that the berries are poisonous or mildly poinonous to us, I'm still
here :-) Also, that it is a winter host of the black bean aphid, Aphis
fabae, and therefore provides a very important winter and spring food
resource for some ladybirds. It seems that it's becoming rarer in the wild
in UK too.

A naturalist said: " ... an old festival, Spindlemass, when the country
folk compete in collecting the largest possible quantity of pretty pink
spindleberries and displaying them in traditional patterns in their cottage
windows. The origin of the Spindleberry festival, or Spindlemass, is like
most things in our part of the countryside, lost in the mists of antiquity.

"Some old herbal books recommend spindleberries for their purgative
qualities and others for their binding effect and some for both at the same
time. Many country folk are addicted to them. But old Dr Higgs, who retired
from practice in Bournemouth and previously in west Africa, to live at "the
Hollies", an ivy-grown villa subject to subsidence at the outskirts of our
village, maintains that this is contrary to reason, and that he could think
of many other substances which are equally without any effect on the
digestive system.

"This is regarded with scorn and derision yet I often think that the
traditional beliefs of the country folk, illogical as they may seem, are
worth more than any rational argument.

"I also found this
A decoction of the bark of this plant has strong purgative and laxative
qualities. So strong in fact that it has been declared totally unsafe and
even deadly by the United States Food and Drug Administration. The active
ingredient is the glycoside euonymin, which affects the heart. The Winnebago
used an inner bark decoction of E. atropurpurea to treat uterine trouble.
The wood is hard and yellow and was used in Europe to make spindles. An oil
can be extracted from all parts of the plant and has been used to make
soap."

We - that is Spouse - has used twigs from the bush as spindles. They're very
suitable and I suspect that's the source of the name. I'm wondering about
trying to make soap now. I grew soapwort to try that but it's not very good
despite the myth and it's become a weed. A very pretty weed - but so is
dandelion :-)

Thanks for bringing this up, I'd never looked into spindleberry before, it
was just a pretty shrub in our hedge.

Mary