Scientific Name
Other Names
Life Form
Synonyms
Family
Ornamental - It is a commone garden plant. Medicine - Fruit is used in traditional Chinese medicine to "drain fire" and treat certain febrile conditions. It has anti-inflammatory and antipyretic effects.
China, India, Japan
Thickets and forests at streamsides, on mountain slopes or hills, or in valleys or fields.
Known for its fragrant, cream white flowers. Quite popular in perfumery and wedding flower arrangements.
It is shrubs grow up to 0.3-3 m tall.
Branches terete to flattened, with internodes developed to shortened, glabrescent or usually densely puberulent to pilosulous, becoming gray to grayish white, with buds resinous and distalmost internodes often covered with resin.
Leaves glossy green, opposite each other on the stem. These oval to oblong leaves come in various sizes (3-25 cm long) and have smooth, shiny surfaces.
Flower solitary, terminal; peduncle 1-10 mm, puberulent or pilosulous to glabrous. Calyx puberulent or pilosulous to glabrous; ovary portion obconic or obovoid, 5-8 mm, with (5 or)6(-8) weak to developed longitudinal ridges; limb with basal tubular portion 3-5 mm; lobes (5 or)6(-8), lanceolate or linear-lanceolate to spatulate, 10-30 × 1-4 mm, often strongly keeled, acute. Corolla white to pale yellow, simple or in cultivation sometimes doubled, outside glabrous; tube 30-50 × 4-6 mm, cylindrical, in throat pilose; lobes (5 or)6(-8) or numerous when doubled, obovate or obovate-oblong, 15-40 × 6-28 mm, obtuse to rounded.
Berry yellow or orange-yellow, ovoid, subglobose, or ellipsoid, 1.5-7 × 1.2-2 cm, with 5-9 longitudinal ridges, with persistent calyx lobes to 40 × 6 mm; seeds suborbicular, weakly angled, ca. 3.5 × 3 mm.
Flowering: March – July
Fruiting: May – February