Russia Flora: Plant, up to 40 cm tall, succulent, smooth. Rhizome thick, horizontal, branched. Stem usually unbranched, at the base with 2-3 (4) pairs of underdeveloped scale-like leaves. Leaves 4 in number, gathered on short petioles in the form of a whorl located in the upper part, glabrous, oval or elliptical, up to 12 cm long, 4 cm wide, sharply serrate, acuminate at apex. Flowers collected in an erect spike 2-3 cm long, on a peduncle up to 5 cm long; flowers without perianth, bisexual, sessile, white; stamens 3 in number, 4-5 mm long, white, with elongated filaments fused at the base, attached to the ovary; middle stamen usually sterile. Connective protrudes above the anther. Fruit a drupe, oblique, narrowed at the base, 2-3 mm long. 2n=30 (Sokolovskaya, 1966). 

Lower Zeya (rare), Bureya, Ussuri.  In coniferous-broadleaved and deciduous forests, on rich moist soils. Flowers IV-V, fruits VII-VIII.  General distribution: Japan-China.  Described from Japan.

Note: The indication for Sakhalin Island (Key to Higher Plants of Sakhalin and Kuril Islands, 1974: 133) is not supported by herbarium materials.