Li Pi
StarPyrus bretschneideri Rehd. / Pyrus pyrifolia (Burm.f.) Nakai / Pyrus ussuriensis Maxim.
Traditionally used for
- Cough & breathing
- Colds & fever
- Digestion
- Skin
☯ TCM Properties
Clears Heart Fire; Moistens the Lungs; Clears Heat and Generates Fluids; Resolves sore toxins; Clears Summer-Heat
Traditional Chinese Uses
Li Pi (pear skin) is a cool, sweet herb used in Chinese medicine to nourish Lung and Stomach Yin, relieve dry cough, quench thirst, and relieve mild Heat. As the thin skin of the pear fruit, it carries the cooling, moistening properties of the whole pear in a concentrated form. It is used for dry, unproductive cough from Lung dryness, heat-induced thirst, and the mild fever patterns of Yin deficiency. Combined with honey or lily bulb, it forms classical home remedies for respiratory dryness.
Western Herbalism Properties
Relationships
Full-screen graph →Click a node for details · double-click to expand it · Ctrl/⌘ + scroll or two fingers to zoom and pan.
Botanical Description
Li Pi is the dried peel of Asian pears, taken from any of several closely related Pyrus species native to East Asia — chiefly P. bretschneideri (Chinese white pear), P. pyrifolia (sand or nashi pear), and P. ussuriensis (Ussurian pear). These are medium-sized deciduous trees in the Rosaceae family reaching 8-15 m tall, with rounded crowns, ovate to broadly elliptic finely serrate leaves 5-12 cm long that turn yellow-orange in autumn, and showy white five-petalled flowers borne in corymbs in early spring. The fruit is a globose to oblate or pyriform pome 4-12 cm across with crisp juicy flesh and a pale yellow to russet-brown skin dotted with conspicuous lenticels. The thin peel, with its slightly gritty texture from stone-cell deposits, is the medicinal material — strip-shaped fragments in trade, pale yellow-brown on the outer surface.
Active Constituents
Arbutin
Hydroquinone O-glucoside (phenolic glycoside)Concentration: highest in the peel of any part of the mature fruit: 1.20 mg/g fresh weight, roughly 3 to 5 times the level in the core and 10 to 45 times the level in the flesh, measured across 14 Oriental pear cultivars; young fruit of the Yali cultivar (Pyrus bretschneideri) reaches 9.92 mg/g fresh weight and falls below 0.400 mg/g by maturity
Arbutin is the compound that most clearly justifies treating the peel as a distinct drug from the flesh, because the flesh contains only a small fraction of it. It is hydrolysed by gut and hepatic beta-glucosidases to hydroquinone, which is then conjugated and excreted; the same chemistry underlies the urinary use of arbutin-rich drugs such as bearberry leaf. Quantitative data cover Pyrus bretschneideri, Pyrus pyrifolia and Pyrus ussuriensis together with Pyrus sinkiangensis, so the figures apply across the three species named in this record.
Chlorogenic acid
Hydroxycinnamic acid ester (caffeoylquinic acid)Concentration: 0.226 mg/g fresh weight in mature Yali fruit, having fallen from 3.72 mg/g in young fruit; unlike arbutin it is more concentrated in the core than in the peel
The principal non-glycosidic phenolic of Oriental pear and the compound behind most of the radical-scavenging activity measured in pear extracts. Because it partitions towards the core rather than the peel, it is a weaker argument for the peel as a drug than arbutin is.
Ursolic acid
Pentacyclic triterpenoidConcentration: not quantified here; reported as the predominant triterpenoid of pear peel, and peel-restricted rather than distributed through the flesh
Part of the cuticular wax layer, which is why it is a peel constituent specifically. Its presence is a reason not to assume that a decoction of the peel is pharmacologically the same material as pear juice.
⚠ Drug Interactions
Arbutin-rich and hydroquinone-releasing preparations (bearberry leaf, Arctostaphylos uva-ursi, topical skin-lightening arbutin products)
Arbutin is hydrolysed to hydroquinone in the gut and liver, and regulatory concern about arbutin in cosmetics and in bearberry preparations rests on that release. The exposure from pear peel is on a different order: at roughly 1.2 mg/g fresh weight in peel, a culinary or decoction quantity delivers far less arbutin than a therapeutic dose of uva-ursi leaf, and pear is eaten as a food. The interaction is worth recording only where a patient is already taking an arbutin-standardised urinary preparation, or an arbutin skin product, and is additionally consuming pear peel in medicinal quantity over a long period.
Clinical note: No restriction for normal dietary or short-course medicinal use. Do not stack a long course of Li Pi decoction on top of continuous uva-ursi therapy, and do not treat Li Pi as an interchangeable arbutin source.
References
- Cui T; Nakamura K; Ma L; Li JZ; Kayahara H. Analyses of Arbutin and Chlorogenic Acid, the Major Phenolic Constituents in Oriental Pear . Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry (2005) [DOI]
- Cho JY; Lee SH; Kim EH; Yun HR; Jeong HY; Lee YG; Kim WS; Moon JH. Change in chemical constituents and free radical-scavenging activity during Pear (Pyrus pyrifolia) cultivar fruit development . Bioscience, Biotechnology, and Biochemistry (2015) [DOI]
This information is for educational purposes only and is not intended to replace professional medical advice. Always consult a qualified healthcare provider before using any herbal remedy, especially if you are pregnant, nursing, or taking medications.
📝 Notes
Public notes from the community and your own private notes on Li Pi.
No notes yet.