In 1908, Wilson, the well-known “plant hunter” collected a plant specimen called euonymus aquifolium in Sichuan. Its leaves are thorned and the petioles wrap the stems. However, it never appeared again after the publication.

In August 2021, Hu Jun, the research assistant of Chengdu Institute of Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences and his colleagues discovered them in a valley at Jiulong County, the southeastern side of Gongga Mountain, Sichuan Province, after years of efforts.

The euonymus aquifoliums discovered this time were rare and distributed in natural-disaster-threatened areas. Therefore, they remain a critically endangered species(CR) according to the latest classification and standard.