The alias of Longan is Gui Yuan.

The alias of longan is "Gui Yuan", and other aliases are Longmu, Bimu, Litchi Nu, Yizhi, sub-Litchi, round eyes, Chuan Bouncer, Lixiu Zhu, Swallow's Eggs, Honey Spleen, Sailor's Tears, Wooden Bullet, Embroidered Wooden Dumpling, and so on.

Because of its seeds round black gloss, the umbilicus protrusion is white, looks like the legendary "dragon" eyes, so the name. Fresh longan meat is very tender, juicy sweet, delicious, really not as good as other fruits. Fresh longan baked into the dried fruit is to become the traditional Chinese medicine cinnamon.

Morphological characteristics of longan:

Evergreen tree, usually about 10m high. With plank roots. Branchlets stout, puberulent, scattered pale lenticels. Leaves even-pinnately compound, alternate; leaves with petiole 15-30cm long, or longer; leaflets 4-5 pairs, rarely 3 or 6 pairs, petiolules usually no more than 5mm long.

Leaf blade thinly coriaceous, oblong-elliptic to oblong-lanceolate, often asymmetric on both sides, 6-15cm long, 2.5-5cm wide, apex acuminate, sometimes slightly obtuse, dark green above, glossy, flourish-green below

Inflorescences large, much branched, terminal and sub-branch axillary, densely covered with stellate hairs; pedicels short; sepals subleathery, triangular-ovate, ca. 2.5mm, both surfaces covered with yellowish-brown tomentum and bundles of stellate hairs; sepals and petals 5 each, petals creamy white, lanceolate, subequal to the sepals and puberulent only outside; stamens 8, filaments hispidulous.

Fruit subglobose, drupelike, indehiscent, 1.2-2.5 cm in diam., usually yellow-brown or sometimes gray-yellow, outside slightly rough, or rarely with slightly convex tubercles; seeds tea-brown, shiny, all wrapped by fleshy aril. Flowering March-April, fruiting July-September.