Aucuba japonica

Japanese aucuba is in the silk tassle or Garryaceae family and is native to Japan. It is a tree or shrub 2–3 m tall with rounded or bushy form.

• It consists of a thicket of erect or arching, little-branched stems. Branchlets are stout, fleshy, quite glabrous and green; bud scales are hairy at the tips.
• Leaves are opposite, leathery, narrowly oval, 7.5–20 cm long, 3.7–7.5 cm wide; glabrous, green and glossy on both surfaces, with usually a few large teeth towards the apex; stalk is 1.2–5 cm long.
• Plant is dioecious; on the male plant, flowers are produced on an erect, terminal panicle 5–10 cm long, each flower 0.8 cm across, with 4–5 purplish petals; flower stalks are downy.
• Fruit is a bright scarlet roundish oval berry (pome) 1.2–1.5 cm long and produced in compact clusters of 2 or 3.