Shocking colours

There are very few examples in Nature of clashing colours, but this is one of them. Spindle, Euonymous europaeus, is a fairly common shrub in areas of chalk scrub and at this time in the autumn the shocking pink berries split open to reveal bright orange seeds. This spectacle doesn't last long as they are soon either on the ground or gobbled up by the growing flocks of foraging thrushes.

The common name, Spindle, for this shrub is slightly misleading. Some larger stems may, in the past, have been fashioned into spindles for wool spinning, but other woods were probably more favoured. The extremely hard wood of Spindle was used more to make skewers and knitting needles.