Ji Mu

This fully galloylated glucose is the archetypal hydrolysable tannin of the plant and outperformed vitamin C as a radical scavenger in the isolation study. Tannins of this class are also protein-precipitating, which is the pharmacological basis for the astringent, bleeding-arresting use of the leaf.

Gallic acid is both a constituent in its own right and the hydrolysis product of the gallotannins, so its measured level rises with decoction time and with storage. It accounts for much of the antioxidant capacity of aqueous extracts.

Ethyl gallate matched gallic acid for radical scavenging in the same assay series. It is more lipophilic than gallic acid and so partitions differently between an alcoholic tincture and a water decoction.

A minor phenolic acid contributing to the antioxidant and antibacterial profile of the leaf. It is widespread in the Hamamelidaceae and is not diagnostic for this species.

Ellagic acid was singled out as the main active compound behind the mucosal repair effect of Loropetalum extract in a TNBS-injured zebrafish model, reducing inflammation and normalising phosphatidylcholine and triglyceride species through klf4 and hist1h2ba. It is the constituent on which the modern Chinese development of this herb as a gastric preparation rests.

The chlorogenic-acid family adds to the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activity of the extract and is largely responsible for its behaviour on HPLC fingerprints. These are common plant phenolics and, like the gallotannins, are extracted well by water.

These dimeric and oligomeric ellagitannins are the constituents that make Loropetalum leaf strongly astringent and are the plausible basis for its folk use on knife wounds and for diarrhoea. They are also the constituents most likely to bind co-administered drugs and minerals in the gut.

These pigments are why var. rubrum is planted as an ornamental across Chinese cities, and their level collapses on high-temperature regreening. Their presence or absence is the quickest way to tell which form of the plant a batch of leaf came from.

Describes the plant under local names meaning orange-wood flower and paper-tip flower, and records that the chewed leaf applied to a knife wound stops the bleeding. This is the earliest illustrated record of the plant and the origin of its haemostatic reputation.

Records Loropetalum as moving the blood, clearing heat and checking diarrhoea, for abdominal pain, watery diarrhoea, strains and bleeding wounds.

Records the herb for heatstroke, sore throat and wind-heat eye pain, broadening the folk indications beyond haemostasis.

The plant was taken into the national Pharmacopoeia with the functions of clearing heat, resolving toxicity and stopping bleeding, for burns and scalds, traumatic bleeding, haematemesis, heavy bleeding and diarrhoea. It is a folk drug promoted into official status rather than a classical one.