Lindera kariensis W.W.Sm.

Deciduous shrubs or trees, 2-10 m tall, up to 20 cm d.b.h. Bark gray-white. Branchlets cylindric, laxly yellow-brown puberulent, later glabrate; current year branchlets brownish, becoming gray or grayish black, lenticellate, lenticels ovate, exserted and longitudinally split. Leaves alternate; petiole 0.5-1.5 cm, brown pubescent, becoming glabrous; leaf blade elliptic, obovate, or oblanceolate, (3-)5.5-6.5(-9.5) × (1.5-)3-3.5(-4.5) cm, membranous, papery at maturity, greenish and densely brown pubescent along veins, later glabrate abaxially, green and laxly brown puberulent along veins, becoming glabrous or nearly glabrous adaxially, or glabrous on both surfaces, pinninerved, lateral veins 4 or 5 pairs, slightly distinct abaxially, base broadly cuneate or subrounded, apex rounded. Umbels (2 or)3-6-flowered, inserted in leaf axil at apex of current year branchlet, not pedunculate; involucral bracts early deciduous. Male flowers green-yellow or nearly white; pedicels (3-)5-7 mm, slender, densely dirty yellow pubescent; tepals 6, ovate or broadly ovate, 3.5-4 × ca. 3 mm, apex rounded, laxly yellow-brown pubescent on dorsal keel; stamens 9, ca. 2 mm; filaments equal to length of anther, 2-glandular; glands broadly reniform, stipitate; reduced pistil very small, less than 1 mm, glabrous; style and stigma small mucro-shaped. Female flowers yellow-green; tepals 6, broadly ovate, ca. 3.5 × 2.5 mm, obtuse at apex, laxly yellow-brown pubescent on dorsal keel; reduced stamens 9, ca. 1.5 mm; filaments rather thick, 2 × length of anther, 2-glandular at base in 3rd whorl; glands ovate, shortly stipitate; anthers sterile; ovary ovate, ca. 2 mm; style equal to length of ovary, slender; stigma peltate, papillose. Fruit ovate to subglobose, ca. 0.8 × 7 mm, mucronate at apex, glabrous; stipes 2-3 mm, later glabrous. Fl. Mar-Jun, fr. Jul-Oct.

It is a tropical plant. It grows in forests between 2,800-3,700 m above sea level. It grows in Yunnan in China.

The fruit are used as a spice.