Shan Zha

Crataegus pinnatifida Bunge (Rosaceae), known as Chinese hawthorn or shan zha, is a deciduous tree or large shrub native to northern China, Korea and the Russian Far East, reaching 6 to 9 meters tall with a rounded crown and few or no thorns in the cultivated form (var. major). The bark is gray-brown and shallowly fissured. The leaves are alternate, broadly ovate, 5 to 10 cm long, distinctively pinnately lobed with three to five pairs of deep, sharply toothed lobes and a pair of leaf-like stipules at the base of the petiole. White, five-petalled flowers about 1.5 cm across are borne in many-flowered, flat-topped terminal corymbs in spring. The fruit, ripening in autumn, is a globose to slightly pear-shaped pome 2 to 3 cm across, bright red with small pale lenticels, containing three to five stony nutlets in a mealy, sour-sweet flesh. The ripe fruits, sliced and dried, constitute Shan Zha in Chinese medicine.