Fatsia japonica, also glossy-leaf paper plant, fatsi, paperplant, false castor oil plant, or Japanese aralia, is a species of flowering plant in the family Araliaceae, native to southern Japan and southern Korea.
It is an evergreen shrub growing to 1–5 m tall, with stout, sparsely branched stems. The leaves are spirally-arranged, large, 20–40 cm in width and on a petiole up to 50 cm long, leathery, palmately lobed, with 7–9 broad lobes, divided to half or two-thirds of the way to the base of the leaf; the lobes are edged with coarse, blunt teeth. The flowers are small, white, borne in dense terminal compound umbels in late autumn or early winter, followed by small black fruit in spring.
It is commonly grown as an ornamental plant in warm temperate regions where winters do not fall below about −15 °C. F. japonica thrives in semi-shade to full-shade and is winter hardy in USDA Zones 8–10. It can be grown as an indoor plant and has been shown to effectively remove gaseous formaldehyde from indoor air. This plant and its cultivar F. japonica 'Variegata' have gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.
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