STORY BEHIND THE ART OF ANN HOFFENBERG

Wildly Exquisite: Florida’s Native Plants

American Strawberry Bush

Euonymus americanus

The first time I saw these eye-popping fruits was decades ago, while I was birding in a wooded area of New Jersey, my home state. At the time I was not painting, but I was completely smitten with the colors and form of these warty pink fruits with dangling orange seeds. Fortunately, I had my camera with me.

One of the common names for this plant is hearts-a-bursting, very appropriate for the stage when the fruit has already burst open along the sutures. Another common name is strawberry bush, which is a little bit of a stretch, but better describes the fruit before it has opened to expose its seeds. In life, the plant is half the size depicted in the painting, but I enlarged it to show the characteristic shapes and colors in a way that could be more easily appreciated. The orange aril covering the seed is nutritious and attractive to birds and small animals. Deer eat the leaves and twigs, so the shrub is often shorter than the height that it could achieve otherwise.

This perennial is native throughout the Eastern United States. While not found in in Palm Beach County, the plant is native to most northern counties in Florida and west to Texas. But if you should come across it in fruit, please don’t eat these little gems! While safe for wildlife, the fruits are toxic to humans.

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Read more about this artist’s work: Out of the Woods