What flowers have medicinal properties? Medicinal flowers are used in medicine for disease prevention and treatment. There are a wide variety of medicinal flowers, each with different medicinal parts. So, which flowers have significant medicinal effects? Which flowers can cure diseases?
This article lists the top ten flowers with medicinal value, recommending the most common floral herbs, including honeysuckle, chrysanthemum, safflower, mandrake, notoginseng flower, frangipani, mimosa, lily, mimosa, and inula flowers. I hope this can be helpful to you.
This ranking is mainly based on the pharmacological effects, efficacy characteristics, medical value, and online attention of flowers, and refers to related internet rankings/lists for a comprehensive recommendation. The medicinal flowers on this list primarily refer to commonly seen ornamental flowers in daily life, with rare or prohibited flowers not being included in this study.
1. Frangipani
Frangipani, once dried, can be used as a traditional medicine. It has properties of clearing heat, relieving summer heat, moistening the lungs and throat, and can also treat throat pain and other diseases.
In Guangdong, dried white frangipani is often used as a cooling tea beverage and is very popular. Frangipani has a slightly sweet and bitter taste and is used to treat heatstroke in summer, diarrhea that often occurs in summer, abdominal pain, and other diseases.
It can be combined with other traditional Chinese medicines for treatment. It can also treat cough diseases after the autumn turns cold and has the effect of expectorating and clearing the lungs.
2. Honeysuckle
Honeysuckle has been revered since ancient times as a great remedy for clearing heat and detoxification. Its sweet, cold, and aromatic nature helps clear heat without harming the stomach and expel pathogenic factors.
Honeysuckle can disperse wind-heat and clear blood toxins. Regular consumption of honeysuckle tea or decoction can effectively treat various heat-related illnesses, such as fever, rashes, spots, heat toxic sores, and sore throat.
3. Chrysanthemum
Chrysanthemum can be used for medicinal purposes, and regular consumption or drinking chrysanthemum tea promotes longevity.
The flower’s sweet, bitter, and slightly cold properties can treat ailments such as exterior wind-heat, fever, chills, red and swollen eyes, sore and swollen ulcers, and symptoms caused by hyperactivity of liver yang, such as dizziness, blurred vision, distending headache.
Regular consumption of chrysanthemum tea can also help with clear thinking, bright eyes, and effectively treat dry eyes caused by excessive liver fire, making it especially beneficial for those who work on computers.
4. Safflower
Safflower, also known as red-blue flower or thorny red flower, is the dried tubular flower of the safflower plant from the Asteraceae family. It’s primarily grown in Henan, Hunan, Sichuan, Xinjiang, and Tibet.
The safflower is slightly bitter and is renowned for invigorating blood circulation, relieving pain, and helping with amenorrhea, dysmenorrhea, retained lochia, angina, abdominal pain, chest and hypochondrium pain, trauma, sore, and swollen ulcers.
It should be avoided by pregnant women, as it can lead to miscarriage.
5. Mandrake
Mandrake can be used for anesthesia as well as treating diseases. Its leaves, flowers, and seeds all have medicinal properties, with a warm, spicy taste and high toxicity.
The flowers can relieve rheumatism, asthma, and pain, treat epilepsy and chills, and wash away stubborn rheumatism and athlete’s foot with its decoction. The flower petals are especially effective for pain relief and can treat neuralgia. Its leaves and seeds can be used to suppress coughs and relieve pain.
All parts of the mandrake are poisonous, so avoid touching, picking, or consuming it casually.
6. Notoginseng Flower
The notoginseng flower is small, yellow-green, with 5-lobed calyx; petals and stamens are both five. The notoginseng flower is the part of the plant with the highest content of notoginsenosides, with a sweet, cool nature.
It has the effect of clearing heat, calming the liver, and reducing blood pressure, suitable for treating dizziness, blurred vision, tinnitus, high blood pressure, and acute pharyngitis.
The notoginseng flower can also be brewed with boiling water, cooked with meat, or used in soups, and it also has certain effects on improving sleep.
7. Mimosa
Mimosa flowers contain mimosa glycosides and tannins, which help to alleviate depression, nourish yin and supplement yang, regulate qi and stimulate appetite, and relieve pain.
It is used for depression, insomnia, chest tightness, forgetfulness, red eyes due to wind-heat, and can calm the internal organs, harmonize the mind, please the complexion, and has good strengthening, calming, sedative, and beauty effects.
It is an excellent product for treating neurasthenia. It has the effects of clearing heat, relieving summer heat, beautifying and removing spots, and relieving alcohol.
8. Lily
The surface of the lily is white or light yellow, smooth and semi-transparent, hard and brittle, easy to break, with a flat cross-section, horny, odorless, and slightly bitter taste. Its main functions are nourishing yin and moistening lungs; clearing the heart and calming the mind.
It is mainly used for long-term cough due to yin deficiency; blood in phlegm; later stage of fever; residual heat not cleared, or restlessness, palpitations, insomnia, dreams, and absent-mindedness caused by frustration; boils; and damp sores.
9. Field Bindweed
Field bindweed is mainly used to treat coughs caused by wind-cold, and accumulated fluid-dampness. It is also used for symptoms like distention and fullness in the chest and diaphragm, cough and asthma with copious phlegm, vomiting and belching, and hardness below the heart.
The common dose is 3-9 grams. This product disperses warmth, so it is not suitable for those with yin deficiency or dry cough due to fluid damage. Furthermore, as it has fluff, it may stimulate the throat, causing itching and leading to coughing and vomiting.
Therefore, it should be decocted in a bag.
10. Inula
Inula, a perennial herb of the Asteraceae family, is primarily used for treating cough due to wind-cold and accumulation of phlegm-fluid. Symptoms such as fullness in the chest and diaphragm, cough and asthma with copious phlegm, vomiting and belching, and hardness below the heart may be treated with Inula.
The common dosage is 3-9 grams. This herb disperses warmth and thus should not be taken by those with yin deficiency cough or dry cough due to fluid impairment. Moreover, due to the fluffy nature of this herb, it can stimulate the throat, causing itching and leading to coughing or vomiting.
Therefore, it should be decocted in a bag.
Peggie was once a high school mathematics teacher, but she set aside her chalkboard and textbooks to follow her lifelong passion for flowers. After years of dedication and learning, she not only established a thriving flower shop but also founded this blog, “Flowers Library”. Here, Peggie shares the art and science of floristry, offers practical tips for nurturing plants, delves into the captivating histories of various species, and provides insights into running a successful flower shop. She hopes that everyone can take a moment now and then to immerse themselves in the world of flowers. If you have any questions or wish to learn more about flowers, feel free to contact Peggie.
