I took a sample from my parents house. The shrub is 6ft high with glossy leaves and is very dense. The fruit is purplish and opens revealing 1 or 2 bright red seed casings. I thought it might be heavenly bamboo, but it doesn't really look like it, and the seeds are more spread out.
Lila, Euonymus was my first thought too. However, from the pics the leaves look alternate. Or am I missing something?
Definitely Euonymus. What variety? Stays mostly green. Pink-purple smooth fruit with bright red seeds, that grow indivisually not in clumps. Non-alternating leaves, very mild saw edges. Looks to be propagating through root system. Grows straight up without any support. I looked at many varieties of Euonymus and cannot find this one.
Very commonly planted E. fortunei looks like this. Another evergreen species grown in North America is E. kiautschovicus.
I agree - the first set of leaves on the bottom of the cutting in the photo on the left are alternate. If the flower is correct for the genus than the focus needs to be on a finding a species that has alternate leaves. alatus, europaeus, fortunei, japonicus, kiautshovicus, and occidentalis are cultivated in N. California. All of them have opposite leaves.
