Find a glossy red with blue undertones.
The fernlike shoots have many branches and reddish, glossy caulids (stems) with phyllids (leaves) up to 3 mm (0.12 inch) long.
The twigs become encrusted with a reddish, bumpy, and glossy resin that is processed to extract the red colourant; lighter grades of the resin are used as the basis for shellac, and was used as a silk dye in India and imported to Spain since the early 13th century.
Fruit a capsule, dehiscent, somewhat 3-sided, globose with prominent terminal floral remains, ca. 2 × 2 cm, semi-glossy brownish, heavily stained with reddish brown speckles on a cream base, exterior very sparsely warty, splitting longitudinally into 3 valves, valves fleshy, usually with 3-locules well developed.
The "willow-like foliage" on this south China native will start reddish, then turn a deep, glossy green.
Sexes appear similar, with glossy black plumage, black legs and bill, and dark reddish eyes.
The eggs are blunt and oval, smooth and slightly glossy; the colour varies from off-white to pink-buff, with reddish-brown blotches mainly at the broader end that sometimes merging into a single patch.
Scales irregularly rhombic, glossy, smooth, the whitish-gray apophysis concave: seeds blackish, 6-7 mm long, the reddish-brown wing 18 28 mm long [ 14].
