This shrub of calcareous soils has become locally established in several northeastern states (K). In Ky. it does not seem to be increasing significantly on the landscape. The few records date from ca. 1930-1970 (B, M), and colls. still need to be verified. It is not clear if all of these were from truly wild plants, but B noted "locally established as an escape." Elsewhere in North America, there has been some confusuon with atropurpureus; the supposed national champion of atropurpureus at St. Louis, Missouri, with dbh 86 cm in 2015, appears now to have been europaeus (americanforests.org). Like other species in the genus (and family), plants of europeaus contain diverse sesquiterpenoids and related alkaloids (e.g. Smith 1977). The potential roles of these compounds in palatability versus toxicity to herbivores (and in medicinal or narcotic uses by humans) form a complex growing area of investigation. E. europaeus itself is generally somewhat palatable to generalist herbivores, but with highly variable responses (e.g. Boulanger et al. 2009, Thomas et al. 2011),