The common Spindle tree (Euonymus europaea) has got its colloquial german name Pfaffenhütchen (parsons hat, bishop's cap) because of the very characteristic red-colored seed capsules that it forms in autumn. The shrub can sometimes grow into small trees. The pale yellow wood, which takes on a brown core in old age, is very hard, tough, dense and easy to cut; it is ideal for instrument makers, watchmakers and is used as so-called cleaning wood for cleaning and polishing the tenons and bores in high-precision objects such as mechanical watches and measuring instruments. It was traditionally used to make caskets, chessboards and organ pipes, shoe pins and toothpicks. Due to its hardness it was the wood of choice for weavers who used it for the spindles of looms. The wood is sought for its nearly perfectly fine-grained structure.
