Bursting-Heart (Euonymus americanus), Mt. Cuba, Hockenville, Delaware, early Autumn

 

A deciduous bush so modest and thin-boughed you miss it if you don’t know where it is hiding.

Verging on straggly, it is autumn when the couture-coloured fruit opens.  Birds eat the seeds and deer the leaves.  Not poisonous to Sapiens but a very strong laxative.

Native throughout the Piedmont of the Eastern US and in Texas and Ontario. 

(The last photo found on the web and of unknown provenance).