Japan Flora: More or less scandent, deciduous, dioecious shrubs with glabrous, terete, grayish brown branches; leaves orbicular, obovate, or elliptic, 5-10 cm. long, 3-8 cm. wide, rounded and apiculate to obtuse at apex, broadly cuneate to abruptly acute at base, glabrous, with appressed obtuse teeth, paler beneath, the petioles 1-2 cm. long; inflorescence cymose, axillary, 1- to many-flowered on a short peduncle, cymose, glabrous, the pedicels slender, 3-5 mm. long; flowers pale grcen，5-merous; petals narrowly oblong, about 4 mm. long; stamens half as long as the petals; fruit globose, pale greenish yellow, gla­brous, about 8 mm. across, 3-valved, dehiscent, exposing the seeds, these covered with an orange-red aril; style persistent, 2-3 mm. long. May-June. Thickets and grassy slopes in lowlands and mountains; Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, Kyu­shu; common and often planted as a hedge.  s. Kuriles, Korea, Manchuria, Sakhalin, China, and Ussuri.

f. aureoarillatus (Honda) Ohwi. Aril yellow.

var. punctatus (Thunb.) Rehder. Leaves smaller, thicker, elliptic, more or less lustrous, 3-5 cm. long, the petioles shorter, 5-10 mm. long. A southern phase, abundant usually near seashores, al­though transitional with the typical phase.

var. papillosus (Nakai) Ohwi. Leaves papillose beneath on nerves and vein lets. Honshu (centr. distr. and northw.), Hok­kaido.