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The Linden viburnum (Viburnum dilatatum) belongs to Caprifoliaceae (the Honeysuckle family). It is a small deciduous tree that is distributed from southwest Hokkaido to Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu of Japan, as well as the Korean Peninsula and China. This tree grows in hills and mountains and can reach about 5 m in height. The leaves are obovate to ovate, round and opposite with slightly toothed edges. They are defined by the long leaf-stalks 10-25 mm long. There are two or three large glandular dots near the base of the reverse side. The many small white flowers come in the terminal flat corymbs from May to June. The fruits ripen red in September to October. They have a white bloom in November, and can be edible. In Chinese, it is called "莢蒾" (jia mi).
In Korean, it is "ga-mak-sal-na-mu" (가막살나무). This is a compound word formed from "ga-mak-sal" (가막살) and "tree" (na-mu: 나무). "ga-mak-sal" (가막살) gets its name from the fact that its stem is dark in color, meaning "it has a black stem" (가막 살 (줄기) 을 가진), and another theory suggests that the name evolved from "crow rice" (가마귀쌀), a term used to describe the fruit's red, ripe form, which was likened to "rice eaten by crows".
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