A modern reference to temperate woody plants, including updated content from this site and much new material, can be found at Trees and Shrubs Online.

Illicium anisatum L.

Modern name

Illicium anisatum Gaertn.

Synonyms

I. religiosum Sieb. & Zucc.

A shrub or small tree, the young branches of which are glabrous, green spotted with brown. Leaves 2 to 4 in. long, 34 to 1 in. wide, narrowly oval, blunt at the apex, tapering at the base to a short thick stalk. Flowers borne from March to May, about 1 in. across, shortly stalked, clustered in the leaf-axils, not fragrant. Petals narrow, numerous (up to thirty), pale greenish yellow. Bot. Mag., t. 3965.

Native of China and Japan; introduced in 1790. South of London it is moderately hardy in a sheltered position, growing slowly but steadily to a height of about 6 ft in the open, and flowering freely. In the milder parts it will attain twice that height or even more; at Trewidden in Cornwall it is 20 ft high.

The leaves and wood have a strong and agreeable fragrance. This shrub was long thought to be the ‘star anise’ of the Japanese and Chinese, but that tree is really quite a different species – I. verum Hook. f.

I. henryi Diels – A small tree in the wild. Leaves oblanceolate, 4 to 6 in. long, 1 to 2 in. wide, acuminate at the apex, tapered at the base to a stalk 12 to 34 in. long, fairly glossy above, leathery. Flowers fragrant, varying in colour on wild plants from pink to deep crimson (pink in the cultivated plants), solitary in the leaf-axils on stalks 1 to 112 in. long. Petals ovate or oblong-ovate, about twenty in number. Carpels eight to thirteen. A native of W. China, discovered by Augustine Henry; it was later collected by Wilson, but the origin of the plants now in cultivation is uncertain. It is hardy in woodland south of London, but slow-growing.


Genus

Illicium

Other species in the genus