Fatsia

Fatsia is a small genus of three species of evergreen shrubs in the family Araliaceae native to Korea, southern Japan and Taiwan. They typically have stout, sparsely branched stems bearing spirally-arranged, large leathery, palmately lobed leaves 20–50 cm in width, on a petiole up to 50 cm long, and small creamy-white flowers in dense terminal compound umbels in late autumn or early winter, followed by small black fruit. The genus was formerly classified within a broader interpretation of the related genus Aralia.

==Species== , Plants of the World Online accepted three species: {| class="wikitable" |- ! Image !! Scientific name !! Common name!! Description !!Distribution |- |120px ||Fatsia japonica ||fatsia, Japanese aralia, glossy-leaved paper plant, false castor oil plant, fig-leaf palm|| shrub growing to 3–6 m tall. The leaves have 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.||southern Japan and southern Korea. |- | ||Fatsia oligocarpella|| || differs in the lobes on the leaves being less coarsely toothed, but is otherwise very similar.||From the Bonin Islands. It is naturalised in Hawaii. |- |120px ||Fatsia polycarpa|| || The leaves have 9–13 deep, narrow lobes, divided nearly to the base of the leaf. Some authors treat it in a separate genus, as Diplofatsia polycarpa.||Native to Taiwan's mountainous areas. |- |}