Bitter thorn is not only a rare mountain treasure, but also a pure natural medicine. In the dry early spring, it is boiled into a herbal tea, with excellent anti-heat and anti-inflammatory effects; you can also make the dried flowers into pillows, for the fire, lowering blood pressure has a good value.

Root: summer harvest. Fruit: harvested in late summer and early fall. Flowers: harvested when the flowers open. Leaves: harvested throughout the year. Roots and leaves contain acacia alkaloids, balsam wood caustic, etc.: acacia alkaloids have anti-cancer, anti-allergy, asthma and other effects.

Expanded Information

Bitter thorn flower shrub or small tree small, 1 ~ 2.5 (~ 4) m high branches erect spreading, brown, glabrous, sterile branch ends into spiny, odd pinnately compound leaves, with 11 ~ 21 leaflets, the petiole base is not inflated; leaflets elliptic ovate or obovate-oblong, a few above the glabrous, the following sparsely hairy. Racemes terminal, 6-12-flowered; corolla white or yellow, sometimes with slightly reddish-purple flag petals; pods tandem beadlike, sparsely hairy or nearly euglossic, with 3-5 seeds. Flowering from March to August, fruiting from June to October.

The bitter thorn flower is distributed in Kunming, Luliang, Xinping, Dayao, Binchuan, Jianchuan, Lijiang, Dali, Wisi, Mengzi, Huoning, Chuxiong, etc. It is born in the mountain slopes, roadsides, scrubs, and grasses at an altitude of 1300～2500m.

Baidu Encyclopedia - Bitter Prickly Flower