Japan Flora: Usually a low unbranched suffrutes­ cent shrub with minute hairs on upper part of stems, inflores­cence, and young petioles; creeping stems elongate, sparingly branched, leafless; stems ascending, 10-30 cm. long, 2-3 mm. in diameter, terete, with few whorls of verticillate leaves; leaves oblong or narrowly so, 6-13 cm. long, 2-5 cm. wide, acute at both ends, short mu cron a tc-too thed, lustrous, deep green, glabrate, the petioles 7-13 mm. long; inflorescence in the axils of leaves or scalelike leaves, the peduncles slender, spreading, 1-1.5 cm. long, the pedicels 2-5, subumbellate, 7-10 mm. long; flowers white, nodding, 6-8 mm. across, rotate; calyx-segments broadly ovate, abruptly acute, ciliolate; fruit globose, red, 5-6 mm. across. July-Aug. Woods in hills  and low mountains.

Hokkaido (Okushiri lsl.), Honshu, Shi­koku, Kyushu. Korea, China, and Formosa.

var. angusta (Nakai) Makino & Ncnioto. Leaves lanceolate, 2-5 cm. long, 6-20 mm. wide. Honshu (Izuoshima), Kyushu (Yakushima).