A deciduous climbing vine native to East Asia, valued for its small red berries with a unique taste combining sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and pungent flavors. The berries are used fresh, dried, or in traditional medicine and are highly nutritious.

Star anise is a small evergreen tree native to southwest China, prized for its distinctive star-shaped fruits used as a spice and in traditional medicine. It produces fragrant yellow flowers in spring followed by the characteristic hard, multi-pointed seed pods valued in culinary and herbal applications.