The Florida anisetree is a broad-leaved evergreen with elliptic to lanceolate leaves. When crushed, the leaves release a warm aroma like liquorice.

The peculiar maroon flowers have anywhere from 21 to 33 tepals, 25 to 50 stamens and 11 to 21 pistils. They look more like some alien sea creature than a flower. Unlike the leaves, the flowers emit a dank, somewhat fishy odor.

The fruit is an aggregate of follicles arranged in a star-burst. Each follicle dehisces explosively when ripe scattering the seeds. It is important not to confuse the aggregate fruits of most of the species of Illiicium with the star anise (Illicium verum). Star anise is the only one used as a spice; all the other species, including the Florida anise, are considered poisonous.

There are forty-two known species of Illicium. The anises are monogeneric—the only genus in the family Illiciaceae. These are oddly scattered in warm temperate to tropical zones in North America, the West Indies and Southeast Asia.

The family was probably once widespread in Gondwanaland. Studies of fossilized wood from the Cretaceous-Tertiary (the last and greatest extinction of dinosaurs) added two extinct species to the anisetrees. These were placed in a 'new' genus, Illicioxylon. Stranger still, the pieces of petrified wood were found in Antarctica.

(Compiled from: "Illicium", Hortus Third, Staff L.H. Bailey Hortorium, NY State College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Cornell University, Macmillan, NY, 1976; "Illicium", Flora of North America, Vol. 3; "Illicioxylon, an Element of Gondwanan Polar forests? Late Cretaceous and Early Tertiary Woods of Antarctica", Imogen Poole, Helmut Gottwald and Jane E. Francis, Annals of Botany, Vol, 86, 2000)