Description
This is 45-60 cm tall, with six or seven dark green, shiny, elliptic, ribbed leaves. Each 5-15 cm long, depending on vigour. The blooms are borne in a short, hairy panicle composed of densely packed, white, starry pompom flowers each with a white centre surrounded by tiny primrose yellow anthers. In turn the flowers are succeeded by pea-sized berries that ripen to bright red. In larger, established plants, the flower spike is much longer and the red seed heads correspondingly longer and much more conspicuous and ornamental.
From Japan, Siberia and possibly Korea and China also, fully hardy and highly esteemed in Japan whilst remaining quite unappreciated in this country it seems. This is one of the most attractive Smilacina and this is the true plant from Japan, not one the green-flowered interlopers imported from China under the name. Light shade in a humus-rich soil where the gently creeping rhizomes can clump up.
