Traditionally used for
- Cough & breathing
- Urinary & fluids
- Skin
Cautions & contraindications
- Pregnancy
☯ TCM Properties
Cools the Blood and expels toxins; Resolves edema; Alleviates pain
Traditional Chinese Uses
Mu Fu Rong Ye (Folium Hibisci Mutabilis) is the leaf of Hibiscus mutabilis, the cotton rose. Pungent and neutral-to-cool, entering the Lung and Liver channels, it clears Heat, cools the Blood and resolves toxin (toxic-Heat). It is best known as a topical remedy: fresh or powdered leaf is made into poultices and pastes for skin abscesses, boils, cellulitis, erysipelas, inflammatory swellings, burns and herpes zoster (shingles), where it reduces swelling and pain and helps drain toxin.
Taken internally it clears Lung-Heat and cools the Blood, used for hot coughs and respiratory heat patterns, and it also resolves edema and alleviates pain. In practice the external application for hot, red, painful swellings is its most prominent traditional use; it is frequently combined with other Heat-clearing, toxin-resolving herbs.
Relationships
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Botanical Description
Hibiscus mutabilis, the cotton rose or Confederate rose, is a large deciduous shrub or small tree of the Malvaceae family native to southern China and now widely cultivated across warm-temperate and subtropical regions. The plant grows two to five meters tall with a rounded, freely branching habit, the young branches and undersides of leaves covered in stellate tomentum. Leaves are large, broadly ovate to nearly rounded, palmately five- to seven-lobed with shallow rounded teeth, and prominently palmately veined; they reach fifteen to twenty centimeters across and are softly downy on both surfaces. The plant is famed for its large showy flowers borne singly in upper leaf axils in late summer and autumn; the petals are remarkable in that they open white or pale pink in the morning and gradually deepen through pink to deep rose-red by evening.
Active Constituents
Rutin (quercetin 3-O-rutinoside)
Flavonol glycosideOne of the flavonoids routinely quantified in this leaf, and present in enough quantity that H. mutabilis leaf has been developed as a preparative source of rutin, with a mechanochemical extraction process published specifically for it. It is the most likely single carrier of the vascular and anti-inflammatory effects claimed for the leaf poultice.
Hyperoside (quercetin 3-O-galactoside)
Flavonol glycosideOne of the eight flavonoids identified by HPLC in the leaf extract alongside rutin and isoquercitrin. A common marker compound across many plant families, so it is useful for standardisation but not diagnostic for this species.
Isoquercitrin (quercetin 3-O-glucoside)
Flavonol glycosideDetected with rutin and hyperoside in the leaf. The three together form the quercetin glycoside pool that dominates the flavonoid profile of the drug.
Quercetin
Flavonol aglyconePresent free in the leaf and released from its glycosides. It was one of the compounds with the strongest predicted target binding in the network analysis of the leaf extract's action on UV-induced skin photoaging.
Kaempferol
Flavonol aglyconeIdentified by UPLC-MS/MS among the active compounds of the leaf extract and, with quercetin, one of the top-ranked compounds by predicted target binding in the photoaging study.
Luteolin
FlavoneOne of the eight flavonoids reported by HPLC in the leaf. Contributes to the anti-inflammatory profile attributed to the drug.
Vitexin (apigenin 8-C-glucoside)
Flavone C-glycosideA C-glycosylflavone of the leaf. Being C-linked it resists hydrolysis in the gut, so it survives decoction and digestion better than the O-glycosides above.
Tiliroside (kaempferol 3-O-(6''-p-coumaroyl)glucoside)
Acylated flavonol glycosideAn acylated kaempferol glycoside reported among the leaf flavonoids. The p-coumaroyl ester raises its lipophilicity relative to the plain flavonol glycosides, which is relevant to a drug used mainly as a topical paste.
Naringenin
FlavanoneIdentified by UPLC-MS/MS among the twenty-two compounds detected in the leaf extract used in the photoaging work. Reported figures for the constituent list of that study also include artemisinin-type compounds, which should be treated with scepticism as probable database artefacts of the network-pharmacology workflow rather than confirmed constituents of a Hibiscus.
⚠ Drug Interactions
Hibiscus sabdariffa (roselle, Luo Shen Hua) interaction data misapplied to this herb
Effectively the entire published herb-drug interaction literature for hibiscus concerns Hibiscus sabdariffa, the sour red calyx drunk as a beverage, for which human pharmacokinetic and blood-pressure interactions have been reported. Hibiscus mutabilis is a different species, and the drug here is the leaf rather than a calyx. There is no interaction dataset for H. mutabilis leaf at all: the absence of a roselle-style warning is not evidence of safety, and the presence of one is not evidence of hazard.
Clinical note: When a database entry, a patient or a product label says hibiscus, establish the binomial and the plant part before acting. Do not record roselle interaction data against this monograph.
Topical corticosteroids and other wound or burn dressings applied to the same site
The dominant traditional use of this leaf is topical, as a fresh or powdered paste on acute mastitis, parotitis, burns, herpes zoster lesions and boils, and the only modern in vivo work is topical application to UV-damaged mouse skin. Nothing has been published on how such a preparation behaves alongside a pharmaceutical topical, on percutaneous absorption of its flavonoids through broken skin, or on its microbiological quality when applied to burns.
Clinical note: Do not layer a herbal leaf paste over a prescribed topical on the same lesion, and do not apply it to a full-thickness burn or an open wound where sterility matters.
Dosage
| Form | Amount | Frequency | Duration | Population | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| decoction | 10–30 g | Daily | — | — | 中国药典 2020 monograph 【木芙蓉叶】【用法与用量】10～30g。外用适量。 【性味与归经】辛，平；归肺、肝经。 — Matched to ChP by romanised drug name (pinyin 'Mu Fu Rong Ye' → 木芙蓉叶); the romanisation is unique across all 649 ChP monographs, and the match was cross-checked against this record's own TCM temperature. Quoted verbatim. |
Evidence Tier
Limited evidence · 1 studyRecorded studies by study design, strongest design at the top. This is a study-design tier only, not a GRADE rating: it does not weigh risk of bias, consistency or precision.
Systematic review / meta-analysis
0
Randomized controlled trial
0
Other clinical trial
0
Observational / case report
0
In vitro / animal
1
0 verified · 1 unverified
Other / unclassified
0
Verified: design read from PubMed for a DOI that resolves to the cited paper Unverified: taken from the study's recorded description
Clinical Studies
Comprehensive analysis of Hibisci mutabilis Folium extract’s mechanisms in alleviating UV-induced skin photoaging through enhanced network pharmacology and experimental validation
Working explicitly on Hibisci Mutabilis Folium, the leaf named Mu-Fu-Rong-Ye and listed in the 2020 Chinese Pharmacopoeia, the authors profiled the extract by UPLC-MS/MS, ran network analysis, then validated it in UVB plus UVA irradiated HaCaT keratinocytes and in male ICR mice treated topically for seven days. The extract improved cell viability, lowered TNF-alpha, IL-6 and IL-17, reduced MMP-9 expression and inhibited AKT-STAT3 phosphorylation, and reduced wrinkling and epidermal thickening in the mice. Kaempferol and quercetin were among the compounds with the strongest predicted target binding. This is preclinical work on photoaging, not on any classical indication of the drug.
⚠ Safety & Contraindications
- Pregnancy
Contraindications
Its use is prohibited in pregnant women.
Source: Xi S, Gong Y. Essentials of Chinese Materia Medica and Medical Formulas. Academic Press/Elsevier, 2017, p. 416.
Historical Texts
Ben Cao Gang Mu
Ming dynasty, 1596 CEReferences
- Xie J, Shi L, Zhu X, Wang P, Zhao Y, Su W. Mechanochemical-assisted efficient extraction of rutin from Hibiscus mutabilis L. . Innovative Food Science & Emerging Technologies (2011) [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.
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