Lindera aggregata

The evergreen spicebush is in the laurel or Lauraceae family and is native to China (provinces of Anhui, Fujian, Guangdong, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi and Zhejiang), Japan (naturalized), Philippines and Vietnam. It is a shrub or small tree reaching up to 5 m tall.

• Young branchlets are blue-green with dense golden silky hairs; bark is gray-brown; terminal bud is narrowly elliptic.
• Leaves are evergreen, alternate, 3.5–7 cm long and 2–4 cm wide, ovate or elliptic, leathery, immature leaves densely covered in golden silky hairs, mature leaves upper surface is lustrous green and glabrous, lower surface is glaucous with soft brown hairs, triplinerved (having 3 main veins), margins entire, apex caudate to acuminate; petiole is 0.6–1 cm long and pubescent.
• Plant is dioecious, (males and females on separate plants); flower clusters are axillary, with 6–13 flowers and one bract, densely covered with tomentum; flowers are yellowish green, 6 tepals with soft, white hair outside and glabrous inside; staminate flowers have 9 fertile stamens; pistillate flowers have 9 staminodes and a capitate stigma; flowering is in March-April.
• Fruit is ovate or subrounded, reddish brown to black, 0.8–1 cm long and 0.4–0.7 cm wide, ripening May-November.