• Scientific Name: Camptotheca acuminata Decne.
• Ref: Bull. Soc. Bot. France. 20:157. 1873
• Synonym: Camptotheca yunnanensis Dode
• English Common Name: happy tree, tree of life, cancer tree
• Chinese Common Name: 喜树 xǐshù, 旱莲木 hànlián∙mù, 千丈树 qiānzhàng∙shù
• Japanese Common Name: カンレンボク [旱蓮木] kanrenboku, キジュ [喜樹] kiju
• Family: Nyssaceae
• Genus: Camptotheca
• Distribution: Forest margins, by streams; below 1000 m. Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Sichuan, Yunnan, Zhejiang.
• Photo: 07/25/2012, Mt. Emei, Sichuan

Trees deciduous, to 20 m high; bark light gray, deeply furrowed; young branchlets purplish, villous, old branchlets glabrous. Petiole 1.5-3 cm; leaf blade abaxially greenish and lucid, oblong-ovate, oblong-elliptic, or orbicular, 12-28 × 6-12 cm, papery, slightly pubescent, lateral veins (4-)8-11(-15) pairs, base subrounded, margin entire, apex acute. Head terminal or axillary, often 2-9-flowered, 1.5-2 in diam.; bracts 3, triangular, 2.5-3 mm, both surfaces pubescent. Calyx cup-shaped, shallowly 5-lobed. Petals 5, light green, ca. 2 mm. Disk conspic- uous. Stamens 10, outer 5 longer than petals, glabrous. Style ca. 4 mm, glabrous; stigmas 2. Fruit thinly winged, gray-brown, 2.5-3.5 cm × 5-7 mm, smooth and lucid when dry. Seed 1; cotyledons lanceolate, 2-4 × ca. 1 cm, pinniveined, with 6-8 lateral veins on each side. Fl. May-Jul, fr. Sep. 2n = 44*. (Flora of China)

06/21/2009, South China Botanical Garden, Guangdong