I have several relatively new plants of the cultivar Illicium floridanum 'Shady Lady,' which is the variegated form of it. It requires lots of water, which may be just because they are not well established yet. But I absolutely love it. They survived the winter without any loss of the evergreen leaves. I believe that the variegated form grows more slowly than the green form, as would be expected.

So I was correct in planting it in a wet, shady area?