Hei Lao Hu (Gen)

Kadsura coccinea (with the related K. heteroclita also used) is an evergreen woody climbing vine of the Schisandraceae family native to southern China, Vietnam, and adjacent Southeast Asia, where it scrambles through subtropical and tropical forest. The plant produces robust glabrous twining stems with smooth dark grey to reddish-brown bark that develops a corky texture with age, and the wood and root have a faintly aromatic quality. Leaves are alternate, leathery, elliptic to oblong-lanceolate, ten to fifteen centimeters long, with entire or sparsely toothed margins and a glossy dark-green upper surface. Solitary unisexual pinkish-red to crimson flowers are borne on slender pedicels in the leaf axils, followed by the genus's striking compound fruit — a globular aggregate of many fleshy bright-red berries on an enlarged spherical receptacle, suspended on a long stalk.