2018 ASHS Annual Conference

Euonymus alatus, also known as “burning bush” or “Winged Euonymus”, is an extremely popular
landscape plant in the United States because of its brilliant red color in fall. However, burning bush is also
highly invasive because of its prolific seed production and effective seed dispersal by birds. Hence,
development of sterile, non-invasive burning bush is in high demand. We have used several approaches,
including mutagenesis and tissue culture-mediated production of triploids, to create cultivars of sterile,
non-invasive burning bush plants. We have observed that a number of triploid plant lines produced few
fruits and seeds. Some of these sterile lines are also dwarf with reduced stem internode length. Further
characterization show that pollen from some sterile lines is infertile. We have also produced several
sterile plant lines of burning bush via mutagenesis. One mutant plant line has its flowers aborted at later
stages due to non-viable pollen. Successful development of sterile, non-invasive cultivars of burning bush
plants may help the ornamental industry and reduce seed-mediated undesirable spread of burning bush
plants.