Trees to 25 m tall; trunk to 0.5(-2) m d.b.h.; bark light yellowish gray, dark gray, or grayish brown, with irregular vertical fissures. Leafy branchlets oblong-obovate in outline, 4-7 × 2.5-4 cm, axis green and glabrous in 1st year, thereafter yellowish green, light brownish yellow or pale brown. Leaves borne at (50-)60-90° to branchlet axis; petiole 0.5-1 mm; blade bright green and glossy adaxially, linear-lanceolate, usually straight, (0.7-)1.1-2.5(-4.5) cm × 2-3.5 mm, with no conspicuous grooves, midvein indistinct adaxially, (0.2-)0.5-0.7 mm wide abaxially, stomatal bands (0.2-)0.3-0.4 mm wide, marginal bands 0.5-0.7 mm wide, base obtuse or broadly rounded, ± symmetric, margin flat or very narrowly revolute, apex symmetrically or slightly asymmetrically tapered, cuspidate, cusp 0.3-1 mm. Pollen cones columnar, ca. 8 mm; bracts conspicuously ridged. Aril pale purplish brown and white powdery when ripe, apex obtuse-rounded or rounded and cuspidatae. Seed ellipsoid to ovoid, elongate-ellipsoid, obovoid, or obovoid-conical, 2-4.5 × 1.2-2.5 cm; female gametophyte tissue slightly wrinkled, not ruminate.

Anthelmintic and carminative (flowers); anthelmintic, antitussive, laxative and peptic (seeds)

Plants For A Future
Flora of China

The dried ripe seeds are useful in treating ancylostomiasis, ascariasis and many other worm infections, coughs and constipation.

Jing-Nuan Wu. An Illustrated Chinese Materia Medica. P: 626, Oxford University Press, Inc.2005.