Mu Gua

Chaenomeles speciosa, the flowering quince or Mu Gua, is a deciduous, densely branched, often spiny shrub in the Rosaceae, native to central and eastern China and widely cultivated as an ornamental and medicinal plant. The shrub grows 1 to 2.5 meters tall, with rigid, spreading branches, smooth purplish-brown young bark and stout thorns on the older shoots. The alternate, simple leaves are ovate to oblong-lanceolate, 3 to 9 cm long, with a sharply serrate margin, a glossy dark green upper surface and a paler glabrous underside; the stipules at the base of the petiole are conspicuous, kidney-shaped to ovate and persistent. Flowers appear before or with the leaves in early spring, in clusters of two to six along the older wood, 3 to 5 cm across, with five rounded petals in shades of brilliant scarlet, deep red or sometimes pink to white, surrounding many yellow stamens. The fruit is a hard, fragrant, oblong to ovoid pome 4 to 9 cm long, yellow-green ripening to deep yellow with a waxy surface, which is sliced and dried to produce the medicinal drug Mu Gua.