+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| ## american bittersweet {#american-bittersweet .Title-Header}         |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| *Celustus scandens* L.                                                |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Plant Symbol = CESC                                                   |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+

####### *Contributed By: USDA, NRCS, National Plant Data Center & the Biota of North America Program*

**Alternate common
names**![](media/image2.jpeg){width="2.598611111111111in"
height="1.7354166666666666in"}

Climbing bittersweet, false bittersweet, climbing orange-root,
fever-twig, fever-twitch, staff-vine, jacob's-ladder

**Uses**

American bittersweet is valued for its glossy green summer foliage
followed by orange and red fruits and seeds, and several landscape
cultivars are commercially marketed. The branches with colorful berries
and arils are used in dry flower arrangements and winter decoration.

All parts of bittersweet are reported to be poisonous, but songbirds,
ruffed grouse, pheasant, and fox squirrel eat the fruits. The Menominee,
Ojibwa, and Potawatami tribes of North American Indians have used the
inner bark as an emergency food. Various parts of the plant have been
used in decoctions and ointments for a variety of ailments, including
cough, intestinal, and gynecological problems.

Oil expressed from the seeds of the related species *Celastrus
paniculatus*, a shrub native to India, has been used medicinally in
India for centuries. The oil is used to increase memory and facilitate
learning. It induces a feeling of well being and has reported
aphrodisiac effects.

**Status**

Please consult the PLANTS Web site and your State Department of Natural
Resources for this plant's current status, such as state noxious status
and wetland indicator values.

**Description**

*General:* Bittersweet family (Celastraceae). Native dioecious or partly
dioecious, semi-shrubs or semi-shrubby vines, forming low, thick stands
from root suckers, clambering and climbing onto fences and trees,
broadly twining and sometimes reaching nearly 20 meters high, the older
stems becoming several cm broad; roots long, woody, bright-orange,
creeping, about 2-3 cm thick, with a thick, red or yellowish-red bark
(the medicinal part). Leaves are deciduous, alternate, spiral or
somewhat 2-ranked by the twisting of the stem, glabrous, 5-12 cm long
and about half as wide, oblong-elliptic to ovate or obovate, acuminate
at the tip, with small, rounded teeth, the petioles 1-2 cm long. Flowers
are unisexual (with either the stamens or the ovary abortive) or rarely
bisexual, fragrant, small (ca. 4 mm wide), greenish-white or
greenish-yellow, in clusters at the branch tips, usually with 14-44
flowers per cluster. Fruits are orange to yellow-orange, globose, 7-10
mm wide, with 2-4 cells; seeds 1-2 in each cell, each seed enclosed in a
bright scarlet fleshy aril.

The related oriental bittersweet (*Celastrus orbiculatus* Thunb.) is
becoming more common than American bittersweet and is attaining a
similar geographic range. The following contrast gives information for
their separation:

1\. Leaves mostly oblong-elliptic to ovate, 1.8-2.6 times longer than
wide; flowers and fruits 6 or more in panicles (irregularly
branching**)** at the branch tips. *Celastrus scandens*

2\. Leaves mostly obicular to suborbicular or broadly obovate, 1.2-1.7
times longer than wide; flowers and fruits 2-3 in cymes **(**regularly
branching**)** in the leaf axils below the branch tips. *Celastrus
orbiculatus*

**Distribution**

American bittersweet grows over the eastern two-thirds of the US (except
for Florida), on the western edge of the range from Texas and Oklahoma
to Wyoming and Montana, and across southeastern Canada from Saskatchewan
to New Brunswick.

**Adaptation**

In rich or swampy woods, or appearing weedy in disturbed areas in
thickets, roadsides, field edges, fences, and other disturbed sites.
This species flowers in late May through June and produces fruits in
June through November.

**Establishment**

The seeds are widely distributed by birds, which accounts for the
tendency of the species to occur in disturbed habitats. Prechilling
apparently is required to break dormancy \-- seeds stratified for 90
days at 5º C., then planted in soil maintained at 20-25º, germinated at
71%.

**Management**

American bittersweet vines can girdle and kill live plants used for
support, but the native species rarely presents a problem because of its
relative lack of abundance. Oriental bittersweet, however, is displacing
the native species where they have begun to occur together, and there is
some indication that they are hybridizing. The non-native species grows
over vegetation and kills other plants by preventing photosynthesis,
girdling, and uprooting by force of its massive weight. Its seeds are
more numerous and more desirable by birds, thus more widely dispersed
and they have a higher germination rate. The non-native species has
higher pollen viability and also is more efficient in photosynthesis.
Further, oriental bittersweet has been planted along roadsides for
erosion control, it is propagated for horticulture and sold
commercially, and its seeds are spread to waste places through disposal
of dried flower arrangements.

**Cultivars, Improved and Selected Materials (and area of origin)**

Contact your local Natural Resources Conservation Service (formerly Soil
Conservation Service) office for more information. Look in the phone
book under "United States Government." The Natural Resources
Conservation Service will be listed under the subheading "Department of
Agriculture."

**References**

Brizicky G.K. 1964. *The genera of Celastrales in the southeastern
United States.* J. Arnold Arbor. 45:206-234.

Cromer, J.A. 1974. *American bittersweet, Celastrus scandens L*. IN:
*Shrubs and vines for northeastern wildlife*. USDA, Forest Service Gen.
Tech. Rep. NE-9.

DeWolf, G. 1982. *Bittersweet*. Horticulture 60(10):8-9.

Dillingham, F.T. 1907. *The staff tree, Celastrus scandens, as a former
food supply of starving Indians.* Amer. Naturalist 41:391-393.

Dreyer, G.D., L.M. Baird, & C. Fickler 1987. *Celastrus scandens* and
*Celastrus orbiculatus*: *Comparisons of reproductive potential between
a native and an introduced species.* Bull. Torrey Bot. Club 114:260-264.

Duncan, W.H. 1969. *Celastrus (Celastraceae) in the southeastern United
States*. Sida 3:309-310.

Hou, D. 1955. A revision of the genus *Celastrus*. Ann. Missouri Bot.
Gard. 42:215-302.

White, O.E. & W.M. Bowden 1947. *Oriental and American bittersweet
hybrids*. J. Heredity 38:125-127.

**Prepared By**

*Guy Nesom*

Formerly BONAP, North Carolina Botanical Garden, University of North
Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina

**Species Coordinator**

*Lincoln Moore*

USDA, NRCS, National Plant Data Center, Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Edited: 13nov00 jsp; 10jun03 ahv; 05jun06 jsp

For more information about this and other plants, please contact your
local NRCS field office or Conservation District, and visit the PLANTS
Web site\<[http://plants.usda.gov](http://plants.usda.gov/)\> or the
Plant Materials Program Web site
\<[http://Plant-Materials.nrcs.usda.gov](http://Plant-Materials.nrcs.usda.gov/)\>

*The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) prohibits discrimination in
all its programs and activities on the basis of race, color, national
origin, sex, religion, age, disability, political beliefs, sexual
orientation, and marital or family status. (Not all prohibited bases
apply to all programs.) Persons with disabilities who require
alternative means for communication of program information (Braille,
large print, audiotape, etc.) should contact USDA\'s [TARGET
Center](http://www.usda.gov/oo/target.htm) at 202-720-2600 (voice and
TDD).*

*To file a complaint of discrimination write USDA, Director, Office of
Civil Rights, Room 326-W, Whitten Building, 14th and Independence
Avenue, SW, Washington, DC 20250-9410 or call 202-720-5964 (voice or
TDD). USDA is an equal opportunity provider and employer.*

*Read about [Civil Rights at the Natural Resources Convervation
Service](http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/about/civilrights/).*