Benzoin neesianum Wallich ex Nees in Wallich, Pl. Asiat. Rar. 2: 63. 1831; Aperula neesiana (Wallich ex Nees) Blume; Benzoin fruticosum (Hemsley) Rehder; Lindera fruticosa Hemsley; L. fruticosa var. pomiensis H. P. Tsui; L. pomiensis (H. P. Tsui) H. P. Tsui; Litsea fruticosa (Hemsley) Gamble.

Deciduous shrubs or trees, up to 12 m tall. Bark green or green-brown. Young branchlets green, brownish yellow or brown when dry, smooth. Winter buds ovate; stipe ca. 1 mm. Leaves alternate; petiole 10-12 mm; leaf blade greenish pale abaxially, dark green adaxially, ovate, broadly ovate, or narrowly ovate, 5-14 cm or less than 5 cm, 2.5-8 cm wide, papery, densely pubescent, later gradually glabrate abaxially, glabrous adaxially, trinerved or triplinerved, base rounded, sometimes broadly cuneate, apex acuminate. Umbels with 4 involucral bracts; peduncles ca. 4 mm, glabrous; involucral bracts ciliate, pubescent on base inside, 7-9 flowers included. Male flowers: tepals green before bloom, broadly elliptic or subrounded, glabrous, apex rounded, ca. 1 mm in outside whorl; filaments glabrous, 2-glandular at base in 3rd whorl; glands triangular-reniform, stipitate, sometimes 1 at filament in 1st and 2nd whorl; pistil exserted at center, less than 1 mm. Female flowers yellow; pedicels ca. 2 mm, pubescent; tepals broadly ovate, glabrous, apex rounded, ca. 1.5 mm in outer whorl, ca. 1.2 mm in inner whorl; reduced stamens fasciated, ca. 0.8 mm in 1st and 2nd whorls, 2-glandular at filament base in 3rd whorl; glands triangular or oblong, unequal in size, irregular long stipitate; ovary elliptic, glabrous. Fruits subglobose, 6-8 mm in diam.; stipes 4-7 mm. Fl. Apr, fr. Sep.

Mountain slopes, roadsides, forests, forest margins, valleys, thickets; below 2500 m. Anhui, Guizhou, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Xizang, Yunnan, Zhejiang [Bhutan, India, N Myanmar, Nepal].