Japanese skimmia

S. japonica is a variable, evergreen, densely-branched, dome-shaped shrub, low and creeping or erect, from 0.5m to 7m in height (but typically up to 1.5m in cultivation), with slightly-aromatic, dark green, leathery, obovate to elliptic leaves. White flowers in spring, sometimes flushed pink or red on the outside, appear in panicles at the ends of branches; male flowerheads are large and conspicuous, up to 8cm long, and very sweetly-scented, while the smaller fragrant female flowerheads are followed, if pollinated, by brilliantly bright red fruits, 8mm across, which usually last until the next flowers appear the following spring