Mayumi, Japan's Spindle Tree: The Bow Wood Whose Pink Fruit Calls the Birds
In late autumn, a small tree at the edge of Japanese woods and gardens hangs out what look like tiny pink dice. Each one splits into four and shows bright red seeds. People who see it for the first time often ask the same question: can you eat these?
You cannot. But the birds can, and that is the whole point of the fruit.
The tree is mayumi, Japan's spindle tree. We are a small tree care and landscape business in Mie Prefecture, central Japan, and this page explains what the tree is, where its name comes from, and why we like to see it in a garden.
A relative of the European spindle
Mayumi is Euonymus sieboldianus, also listed as Euonymus hamiltonianus subsp. sieboldianus. In English it is sometimes called Hamilton's spindle tree or the Japanese spindle tree. It is a deciduous shrub or small tree, usually 3 to 5 metres tall, growing wild from China and Korea to Japan and Sakhalin, at forest edges from lowlands to mountains.
If you garden in Europe, you may know its cousin, the European spindle, Euonymus europaeus. The two look alike in autumn, with four-lobed pink fruit that opens to show brightly coloured seeds.
In May and June mayumi has small yellow-green flowers that most people never notice. The tree is grown for what comes after.
Spindles in Europe, bows in Japan
The European spindle takes its English name from what people made with its wood. The wood is pale, even and easy to work, and was used for spindles, knitting needles and combs.
In Japan the same kind of wood went into something else. Mayumi is written with the characters for "true bow". The wood is tough and springy, and in old times it was used to make bows. Hokkaido University's plant pages still list its use as wood for Japanese archery bows. The heavy, durable wood was also used for printing blocks and for turned objects.
Two related trees, two ends of Eurasia, and in both places people looked at the same wood and found a use for it. We find that a nice thing to remember when we prune one.
The fruit: a capsule that opens
Botanically, the fruit is a capsule. When it ripens, the pink outer case splits into four, and each part shows a seed covered in a soft, brightly coloured coat called an aril.
The colour is a signal to birds. The aril is food, and the hard seed passes through the bird and is dropped somewhere else. The tree is using birds to plant its next generation.
Not for people
The seeds of Euonymus are poisonous to people. For the European spindle, the European Commission's forest atlas notes that the bark, leaves and seeds were once used as a purgative, but that they are toxic, with effects on the heart similar to foxglove. Treat mayumi the same way. Do not eat the fruit, and keep it away from small children and pets.
Birds are a different story. In Europe, robins, blackbirds, blackcaps and song thrushes eat the aril and spread the seed.
The birds that come to mayumi in Japan
In our area, the birds we most often see at mayumi are the Japanese white-eye, mejiro, a small green bird with a white ring around the eye, and the brown-eared bulbul, hiyodori, a loud grey bird that is everywhere in Japanese towns. Small woodpeckers such as the Japanese pygmy woodpecker also visit.
The fruit does not all ripen and open at once, so the birds keep coming back. One mayumi in a garden is enough to bring them close to your window.
Growing mayumi in a garden
Mayumi is a popular garden tree in Japan, mostly for its autumn fruit. It also grows well in a large pot. The plant in the photo has been kept in a pot.
It is not difficult to grow, but watch for spider mites and scale insects, which often settle on it.
