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Star anise (八角 bājiǎo, "eight-horn") is a spice that closely resembles anise in flavor, obtained from the star-shaped pericarpIn botany, a fruit is the ripened ovary, together with its seeds, of a flowering plant. In cuisine, when discussing fruit as food, the term usually refers to just those plant fruits that are sweet and fleshy, examples of which would be plum, apple, and or of Illicium verum, a native of N.E. ChinaThis article is on the geographic and cultural entity. For other meanings, see China (disambiguation). China ( Traditional Chinese: , Simplified Chinese: , Hanyu Pinyin: Zhongguo, Wade-Giles: Chung-kuo) is a country in continental East Asia with some oute. It is widely used in Chinese cuisine, and to a lesser degree in South AsiaSouth Asia is a subregion of Asia comprising the modern states of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, and the Maldives. It covers about 4,480,000 km², or 10 percent of the continent and is also known as the Indian subcontinent . These s and IndonesiaThe Republic of Indonesia the world's largest archipelago, is located between the Southeast Asian peninsula and Australia, between the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Indonesia borders Malaysia on the island of Borneo ( Kalimantan in Bahasa Indonesia), Papua N. Star anise is an ingredient of the traditional five-spice powderFive-spice powder (, wxingfen in hanyu pinyin) is a convenient seasoning for Chinese cuisine, particularly Cantonese cuisine. It incorporates the five basic flavours of Chinese cooking — sweet, sour, bitter, pungent, and salty. It consists of China Tung H of Chinese cooking. The seeds are sometimes chewed after meals to aid digestion.

Star anise contains anethole , the same ingredient which gives the unrelated anise its flavor. Recently, star anise has come into use in the West as a less expensive substitute for anise in baking as well as in liquor production.

Star anise has been used in a tea as a remedy for colic and rheumatism.

Japanese star anise (Illicium anisatum), a similar tree, is not edible because it is highly toxic; instead, it has been burned as incense in Japan. Cases of illness, including "serious neurological effects, such as seizures", reported after using star anise tea may be a result of using this species. Japanese star anise contains anisatin, which causes severe inflammation of the kidneys, urinary tract and digestive organs.