Star anise is the dried, star-shaped fruit of Illicium verum, a small evergreen tree of southern China and northern Vietnam whose hard, rust-brown stars each splay into six to eight boat-shaped points, every point cradling a single glossy seed. Despite the name it is unrelated to true anise, yet it smells almost identical — sweet, warm and unmistakably of liquorice — because both plants are dominated by the same molecule, trans-anethole. Snapped open it releases a deep, sweet-spicy, faintly medicinal warmth that is bolder and woodier than aniseed. It is the aromatic backbone of Chinese five-spice powder and the defining scent of Vietnamese phở.