Benzoin erythrocarpum (Makino) Rehder; Lindera erythrocarpa var. longipes S. B. Liang; L. funiushanensis C. S. Zhu; L. henanensis H. P. Tsui.

Shrubs or trees, deciduous, up to 5 m tall. Bark gray-brown. Young branchlets usually gray-white or gray-yellow, many lenticellate, scabrous from corky protuberances. Winter buds long conical, ca. 1 cm. Leaves alternate; petiole 0.5-1 cm; leaf blade usually oblanceolate, occasionally obovate, (5-)9-12(-15) × (1.5-)4-5(-6) cm, papery, greenish white and appressed pubescent abaxially and densely on veins, green and laxly appressed pubescent adaxially, pinninerved, lateral veins 4 or 5 pairs, base narrowly cuneate, usually decurrent, apex acuminate. Umbels each inserted at both sides of axillary bud; peduncles ca. 5 mm; involucral bracts 4, ciliate, 15-17-flowered inside. Male flowers: pedicels laxly pubescent, ca. 3.5 mm; tepals 6, yellow-green, nearly equal, elliptic, apex rounded, ca. 2 × 1.5 mm, laxly pubescent outside, glabrous inside; stamens 9, equal in length, ca. 1.8 mm; filaments glabrous, 2-glandular at base in 3rd whorl; glands broadly reniform, shortly stipitate; reduced pistil exserted at center. Female flowers rather small; pedicels ca. 1 mm; tepals 6, nearly equal in inside and outside whorls, elliptic, apex rounded, ca. 1.2 × 0.6 mm, densely pubescent outside and laxly appressed pubescent inside; reduced stamens 9, ca. 0.8 mm, 2-glandular at base of filaments in 3rd whorl; glands elliptic, sessile; anthers fasciated; pistils ca. 1 mm; ovary narrowly ellipsoid; style rather thick, equal to length of ovary; stigma disciform. Fruits globose, 7-8 mm in diam., red at maturity; stipes 1.5-1.8 cm, gradually thickening toward hypocarpium; hypocarpium indistinctly enlarged, 3-4 mm in diam. Fl. Apr, fr. Sep-Oct.

Records of Lindera thunbergii (Siebold) Makino (Sassafras thunbergii Siebold) and L. umbellata Thunberg from China are referable to L. erythrocarpa.

Mountain slopes, valleys, riversides, forests; below 1000 m. Anhui, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Shaanxi, Shandong, Sichuan, Taiwan [Japan, Korea].