Also known as Zhong'emu, member of the Bretschneideraceae Family, with the Latin name of Bretschneidera sinensis.   

The deciduous arbor can grow up to 20 meters high with a chest diameter of about 60 centimeters. Its twigs have cordiform leaf scars. The leaves are imparipinnate and symbiotic, which are 40 to 80 centimeters long. The leaves are elliptic, ovoid or obovoid with rusting fluffs on its back surface. The white flowers are hermaphrodite, with a diameter of about 4 centimeters. The stamen is rod-shaped. The shape of the fruit inception is narrow ovoid with 3 ventricles inside, each of which has 2 ovules. The ripe subsphaeroidal capsular fruit is brown, woody, and 2 to 4 centimeters long. Its orange red seeds are subsphaeroidal.

Chinese Bretschneidera is native to subtropical regions, growing on low and middle mountain areas, especially ravines 500 to 2,000 meters above sea level and sloping fields beside streams. The fertile acidic yellow-red soil there, which belongs to red soil, has a pH value of 4.5 to 6.0. It grows sparsely in the mixed forest of evergreen and deciduous broad leaf trees. It is a kind of heliophilous tree species, while the saplings can survive without much sunlight. It is deeply rooted, and can resist strong wind and a little freezing, but it cannot resist high temperature. In the east of the distribution region, the winter buds of Chinese Bretschneidera begin to swell up in the middle ten days of March, and in the first ten days of April they stretch themselves into leaves. It blossoms in the last ten days of April. The stage of full bloom is in May and June, and its fruits ripen in October.

They distribute sparsely all over such provinces as Zhejiang, Taiwan, Fujian, Jiangxi, Hunan, Guangdong, Guangxi, Sichuan, and Hubei. It's a special archaic species of China and is of great importance for scientific research. The wood, with beautiful color and texture, has moderate hardness and never upwarps or cracks. Therefore Chinese bretschneidera is a kind of fine timber for furniture as well as for arts and crafts.