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The "Oo-tsuru-umemodoki" (Celastrus stephanotidifolius) belongs to Celastraceae (the Bittersweet family). It is a deciduous vine that is distributed from Iwate Prefecture and southward on Honshu, through Shikoku and Kyushu, and into the southern part of the Korean Peninsula. It grows along the edges of mountain forests; it is a vine that can reach several meters in length and climbs by twining around the trunks of other trees. The leaves are round or broadly elliptical, 6-12 cm long, with bluntly serrated margins. The base of the leaf is round or broadly wedge-shaped, and the underside is densely covered with curly bristles along the veins. From around May to June, it produces corymbs from the leaf axils, bearing yellowish-green flowers 6-8 mm in diameter. The fruit is a capsule, spherical and 5-6 mm in diameter; it ripens to yellow from September to November, splits into three sections, and releases seeds enclosed in an orange-red aril. In Korean, it is called "털노박덩굴" (Teol-no-bak-deong-gul). It is a compound word consisting of "hairy" (털) and "Oriental bittersweet" (노박덩굴).
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