Hovenia dulcis Thunb.

The fleshy rachis of the infructescence is sweet and edible and is used for making wine and candy. The timber is fine and hard and is used for building construction and fine furniture.

Trees, rarely shrubs, deciduous, to 10 m tall. Branchlets brown or black-purple, glabrous, with inconspicuous lenticels. Petiole 2-4.5 cm, glabrous; leaf blade ovate, broadly oblong, or elliptic-ovate, 7-17 × 4-11 cm, papery or thickly membranous, both surfaces glabrous or abaxially pilose on major veins, base truncate, rarely cordate or subrounded, margin irregularly serrate or coarsely serrate, rarely shallowly serrate, apex shortly acuminate or acuminate. Flowers yellow-green, 6-8 mm in diam., in terminal, or rarely axillary, asymmetrical cymose panicles; rachis and pedicels glabrous. Sepals ovate-triangular, 2.2-2.5 × 1.6-2 mm, glabrous. Petals clawed, obovate-spatulate, 2.4-2.6 × 1.8-2.1 mm. Disk sparsely pilose. Ovary globose; style shortly 3-fid, 2-2.2 mm, glabrous. Fruit a 3-seeded nut, black at maturity, subglobose, 6.5-7.5 mm in diam., glabrous; peduncles and pedicels becoming fleshy and juicy at fruit maturity. Seeds deep brown or black-purple, 5-5.5 mm in diam. Fl. May-Jul, fr. Aug-Oct.

Anhui, Gansu, Hebei, Henan, NW Hubei, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Shaanxi, Shandong, Shanxi, N Sichuan [Japan, Korea, Thailand].

Secondary forests, also cultivated in gardens; 200-1400 m.

Hovenia dulcis var. glabra Makino; H. dulcis var. latifolia Nakai ex Y. Kimura.