Styrax japonica

Japanese snowbell in the styrax or Styracaceae family is native to China, Japan and Korea, growing up to about 9 m tall.

• Leaves are alternate, simple, ovate to elliptic with an acute tip, 2.5–8.5 cm long, 4 cm wide. Color is dark, lustrous green.
• Flower "buds" begin to form in the winter, in clusters of many drooping whitish-green 1-cm spheres, that in May blossom into many white flowers hanging below the foliage. They are bell-shaped, 5-lobed with yellow stamens.
• When the flower petals drop off, the fruit develops into drooping "spheres" similar in appearance to the flower spheres in the spring, but maturing into brown seed pods up to 1.5 cm in diameter.
• Branches in winter have distinct look, zigzag with many small branchlets. Buds are scruffy, naked.