Japan Flora: Glabrous shrub with thick elongate branches; leaves obovate-, ovate-, or clliptic-oblong, sometimes ovate, 7-18 cm. long, 4-6 cm. wide, acute with an obtuse tip, obliquely rounded at base, green above, pale green or purplish brown beneath when dry, the petioles 4-6 mm. long; flowers in fascicles on short slightly supra-axillary peduncles, the pedicels short; sepals of pistillate flowers 5 or 6; capsules depressed globose, 8-12 mm. across, about 6-locular, the style obtusely angled, cylitidric. Sept.-Oct. Thickets in lowlands 

Kyu­shu (Yakushima and Tanegashima).  Ryukyus, Formosa, China, and Indochina.