An evergreen shrub 10 ft or more high, sometimes a small tree, with lance-shaped, conspicuously three-ribbed leaves 5 to 8 in. long, about 2 in. wide, the stalks 3⁄4 in. long; they are of a very glossy, varnished, dark green, giving to the shrub a very characteristic aspect. Flowers small, in axillary panicles. At Kew this plant can only be grown against a wall, where it lived for many years without injury. In the south of France and Italy it forms a picturesque spreading shrub or small tree. Native of the Himalaya.