Pagoda Tree Flower (Sophora Flower) huái huā · 槐花

Sophora japonica L. (flower and flower bud; syn. Styphnolobium japonicum)

Nature and flavour. Bitter, slightly cold; Liver and Large Intestine systems.

Classed as cooling the blood and stopping bleeding, and as clearing the Liver and draining fire. It is the haemostatic chosen when the tradition reads the bleeding as heat in the blood with a Liver component: the classical pairings are bleeding from haemorrhoids and blood in the stool alongside the headache, red eyes and dizziness of the Liver fire descriptions. That second half is what makes it more than a haemostatic in the classical framework. The fruit of the same tree, 槐角, is a separate entry in the materia medica and is not used interchangeably with the flower.