Benzoin glaucum Siebold & Zuccarini, Abh. Math.-Phys. Cl. Königl. Bayer. Akad. Wiss. 4(3): 205. 1846; B. glaucum var. kawakamii (Hayata) Sasaki; Lindera glauca var. kawakamii Hayata.

Deciduous shrubs or trees, up to 8 m tall. Bark smooth, gray or gray-white. Young branchlets white-yellow, brown pubescent, later glabrate. Winter buds (mixed bud) long corniform-conical, ca. 1.5 cm × 4 mm; bud scales red on exserted parts. Leaves alternate; leaf blade broadly elliptic, elliptic, obovate, or narrowly obovate, 4-9 × 2-4(-6) cm, papery, greenish and white pubescent abaxially, green adaxially, pinninerved, lateral veins (4 or)5 or 6 pairs. Umbels axillary; involucral bracts inserted in mixed bud, green, membranous, 3-8-flowered inside. Male flowers: pedicels ca. 1.2 cm, densely white pubescent; tepals yellow, elliptic, ca. 2.2 mm, nearly equal in size in 1st and 2nd whorls, pubescent on dorsal keels; stamens 9, equal in length; filaments glabrous, 2-glandular at base in 3rd whorl; glands broadly reniform, cornute, stipe base and filament base coadnate, sometimes a small gland at filament in 2nd whorl; reduced pistil small, elliptic, ca. 1 mm, mucronate at apex. Female flowers: pedicels 3-6 mm, black-brown at maturity; tepals yellow, elliptic or obovate, equal in length in outer and inner whorl, ca. 2 mm, laxly pubescent on dorsal keel of outer surface or rarely pubescent at base; reduced stamens ca. 1 mm, fasciated, 2-glandular at filament base in 3rd whorl; glands ca. 0.5 mm, irregularly reniform, stipitate, stipe and below middle of reduced stamens coadnate; ovary ellipsoid, ca. 1.5 mm; style ca. 0.3 mm; stigma disciform. Fruit stipes 1-1.5 cm. Fl. Mar-Apr, fr. Jul-Aug.

The wood is used in woodwork. The leaves and pericarp are processed for their aromatic oil. The seed oil is used for making soap and machine oil. The roots, branchlets, leaves, and fruit are used medicinally.

Forests, roadsides on mountain slopes; below 900 m. Anhui, Fujian, Gansu, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, SW Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, SW Shaanxi, E Shandong, Shanxi, Sichuan, Taiwan, Zhejiang [Japan, Korea, Myanmar, Vietnam].