Lindera rubronervia

The winter spicebush is in the laurel or Lauraceae family and is native to China. It is a shrub or small tree reaching up to 5 m tall.

• Bark is black-gray, with lenticels; young branchlets are gray-black or black-brown, smooth; winter buds are long, corniform-conical, 5-7 mm long and 2-3 mm broad, glabrous.
• Leaves are deciduous, alternate, oblanceolate or ovate or narrowly ovate, sometimes lanceolate, 6–8 cm long and 3–4 cm across, papery, sometimes subleathery, pubescent abaxially, along midrib laxly pubescent adaxially, triplinerved, usually lateral veins 3 or 4 pairs above middle of blade, veins and petiole red in autumn, base cuneate, apex acuminate.
• Plant is dioecious, (males and females on separate plants); flowers are small, greenish yellow, in short-stocked umbels about 1.3 cm in diameter, visible in March-April.
• Fruit is subglobose, scarlet, about 1 cm in diameter; ripening is in August-September.