Huai Hua Mi
StarStyphnolobium japonicum
Synonyms: Macrotropis foetida, Sophora japonica var. pubescens, Ormosia esquirolii, Sophora japonica f. columnaris, Sophora japonica f. praecox, Styphnolobium japonicum var. pendulum, Styphnolobium japonicum f. pendulum, Radiusia chinensis, Sophora pubescens, Sophora sinica, Sophora japonica f. violacea, Sophora japonica f. pendula, Robinia mitis, Anagyris foetida, Sophora japonica var. violacea, Sophora pendula, Sophora japonica, Styphnolobium japonicum f. violaceum, Sophora mairei, Sophora japonica var. pendula, Styphnolobium japonicum f. oligophyllum, Sophora japonica var. vestita, Sophora korolkowii, Styphnolobium japonicum f. vestitum, Sophora sinensis, Anagyris chinensis, Anagyris sinensis, Sophora vestita, Sophora angustifoliola, Sophora vaniotii, Pongamia chinensis, Styphnolobium japonicum var. pubescens, Sophora japonica f. oligophylla
Traditionally used for
- Headaches
- Dizziness
- Eye health
- Bowel health
- Menstrual & women's health
Cautions & contraindications
- Pregnancy
☯ TCM Properties
Cools the Blood and stops bleeding; Cools the Liver
Traditional Chinese Uses
Huai Hua Mi (sophora flower bud) is a bitter, slightly cold herb used primarily to cool the Blood and stop bleeding, with particular efficacy for hemorrhoidal and rectal bleeding from Damp-Heat in the Large Intestine. It also addresses hemoptysis, epistaxis, and uterine bleeding from Blood Heat. Its secondary action clearing Liver Heat is applied for red eyes, headache, and dizziness from Liver Fire or Liver Yang rising.
Western Herbalism Properties
Relationships
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Gallery
Botanical Description
Styphnolobium japonicum (formerly Sophora japonica) is a large deciduous tree reaching 15-25 m tall with a spreading rounded crown. Bark is grayish-brown with deep fissures. Leaves are pinnately compound, 15-30 cm long, with 9-15 oval leaflets 2-5 cm long. Creamy-white flowers are borne in large, pendulous panicles 15-30 cm long in late summer. Pods are constricted between seeds giving a beaded necklace appearance. The dried flower buds (Huai Hua Mi) and flowers (Huai Hua) are used in TCM.
Roadsides, parks, temple grounds, and cultivated landscapes; native to China and Korea, widely cultivated throughout temperate regions worldwide as an ornamental street tree.
Styphnolobium japonicum is widely cultivated worldwide and is abundant in cultivation. Native populations in China are stable. No conservation concerns.
Active Constituents
Rutin (quercetin-3-O-rutinoside)
Flavonol glycosideConcentration: the dominant constituent of the unopened flower bud; the Chinese Pharmacopoeia requires not less than 20% rutin in Huai Mi (the bud) against 6-8% in the opened flower, and UPLC-DAD of dried buds gave 18.9-30.5% depending on the drying method used
Rutin is the marker compound on which the identity and assay of this drug rest, and it is why the bud rather than the open flower is the higher-grade material. It is poorly absorbed intact and is largely deglycosylated by gut microbiota to quercetin before entering the circulation; the vascular-protective and capillary-stabilising actions attributed to the drug are conventionally ascribed to it and to its aglycone.
Quercetin
Flavonol aglyconeConcentration: a minor component of correctly dried bud, but it rises at rutin's expense when drying is slow
Quercetin is generated from rutin by an endogenous rutin-hydrolysing enzyme of about 38 kDa that is present in the fresh flower and bud and remains active until heat-inactivated. This is a processing variable, not a fixed species trait: drying that fails to inactivate the enzyme converts rutin to quercetin and lowers the assay value. Nearly all of the pharmacokinetic interaction evidence associated with this herb is in fact evidence about isolated quercetin.
Sophoricoside (genistein 4'-O-glucoside)
Isoflavone glycosideSophoricoside is one of the characteristic isoflavonoids of the species. It is far more abundant in the immature fruit (Huai Jiao) than in the flower or bud, so it is a useful chemical marker for telling the two drugs of this tree apart rather than a principal constituent of Huai Hua Mi.
Genistein
Isoflavone aglyconePresent as the aglycone of sophoricoside and of sophorabioside. Genistein is a well-characterised phytoestrogen and tyrosine-kinase inhibitor in vitro; its presence is the main reason for caution about the herb in hormone-sensitive conditions, though no clinical signal has been reported for the flower or bud themselves.
Isorhamnetin
Flavonol (methylated)A minor flavonol of the flower and bud, occurring both free and as glycosides. It contributes to the total-flavonoid figure used in pharmacopoeial assay but is not individually assayed.
Kaempferol
FlavonolA minor flavonol reported alongside quercetin and isorhamnetin in flower and bud extracts. Its concentration is low relative to rutin and it is not a quality marker for this drug.
⚠ Drug Interactions
P-glycoprotein substrates (e.g. fexofenadine, digoxin)
In healthy volunteers, quercetin 500 mg daily for 7 days significantly increased the oral bioavailability of fexofenadine, an effect attributed to inhibition of P-glycoprotein-mediated efflux (Kim 2009). This is a study of isolated quercetin at supplement doses, not of Huai Hua Mi; the USP safety review of Styphnolobium japonicum flower and flower bud explicitly found no interaction reports for the herb itself. The relevance turns on how much quercetin a given preparation delivers, which is highest in poorly dried material and in concentrated rutin/quercetin extracts sold from this species.
Clinical note: No action needed for ordinary decoction doses. Where a patient is on a narrow-therapeutic-index P-gp substrate such as digoxin and is also taking a concentrated Sophora-derived quercetin or rutin supplement, monitor the substrate and separate dosing.
OATP1B1/1B3/2B1 and BCRP substrates (e.g. statins, methotrexate)
Quercetin and its circulating methyl, sulfate and glucuronide conjugates were strong inhibitors of OATP1B1, OATP1B3, OATP2B1 and BCRP in vitro, while only weakly inhibiting CYP2C19 and CYP3A4 (Mohos 2020). Because the conjugates are the forms that actually circulate after oral flavonoid intake, transporter inhibition is a more plausible route to a clinical interaction than CYP inhibition here. No in vivo confirmation exists for the herb.
Clinical note: Treat as a caution rather than a contraindication. Flag it if a patient is on a statin plus a high-dose rutin or quercetin product; a food-grade dose of the dried bud is unlikely to matter.
Warfarin and other anticoagulants
The traditional indication of this drug is bleeding, and its flavonoids are not known to affect clotting factor synthesis. Flavonols do, however, show weak antiplatelet activity in vitro, and quercetin conjugates bind serum albumin, which is a route to displacement of highly protein-bound drugs. No case report or trial links Huai Hua Mi to altered INR, and the USP review found no such reports.
Clinical note: No routine change required. If a patient on warfarin is prescribed this herb specifically because they are bleeding, the bleeding itself, not the herb, is the thing to investigate.
Huai Jiao (Fructus Sophorae) as a substituted or co-supplied drug
The flower bud (Huai Hua Mi / Flos Sophorae Immaturus), the opened flower (Huai Hua / Flos Sophorae) and the fruit (Huai Jiao / Fructus Sophorae) are three separate pharmacopoeial drugs from one tree, and market names run together. The fruit is dominated by sophoricoside and sophorabioside rather than rutin, is markedly more purgative, and carries a stronger traditional caution in pregnancy and in spleen-stomach cold. Supplying fruit against a prescription for bud changes both the assay value and the clinical effect.
Clinical note: Check that what you receive is unopened bud, not open flower and not pod. The rutin assay is the practical discriminator: bud material should assay at or above 20% rutin.
Hormone-sensitive therapies (e.g. tamoxifen, aromatase inhibitors)
Genistein and its glycoside sophoricoside are present in this species and genistein is an established phytoestrogen in vitro and in animals. Concentrations in the flower bud are low compared with the fruit or with soy, and no clinical interaction has been documented for this herb.
Clinical note: Raise it only where a patient is on endocrine therapy and is also taking a concentrated Sophora isoflavone extract. Note separately that the USP review found no data on use in pregnancy or lactation and advised those patients to seek professional advice.
Dosage
| Form | Amount | Frequency | Duration | Population | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| decoction | 5–10 g | daily | — | adult | 中国药典 2020年版 一部 【槐花】【用法与用量】5～10g。 — Chinese Pharmacopoeia 2020, Vol. I. Huai Hua Mi (槐米) is the flower bud, covered by the ChP 槐花 monograph. Dry-fried (chao) to strengthen hemostatic action. |
Evidence Tier
Moderate evidence · 4 studiesRecorded 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
1
1 verified · 0 unverified
Other clinical trial
0
Observational / case report
0
In vitro / animal
2
0 verified · 2 unverified
Show 2 studies
- Alleviating Effect of a Flower Extract of Styphnolobium japonicum L. on Symptoms of Experimentally Induced Osteoarthritis in Rats
- Effects of different postharvest drying processes on flavonoid content and enzymatic activity of Styphnolobium japonicum (L.) Schott flowers for industrial and medicinal use
Other / unclassified
1
1 verified · 0 unverified
Verified: design read from PubMed for a DOI that resolves to the cited paper Unverified: taken from the study's recorded description
Clinical Studies
United States Pharmacopeia comprehensive safety review of Styphnolobium japonicum flower and flower bud
USP's safety review of the dried flower and flower bud found no serious adverse events or toxicity in the clinical or animal literature reviewed, and identified no drug interactions attributable to the flower or bud even though rutin and quercetin individually have interaction potential. The material was admitted to USP's monograph development process. The reviewers noted an absence of data in pregnancy and lactation and advised those groups to seek professional advice.
A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of a Chinese herbal Sophora flower formula in patients with symptomatic haemorrhoids: A preliminary study
A small double-blind placebo-controlled trial of a Sophora-flower-based formula in symptomatic haemorrhoids. At day 7, 87.0% of the formula group versus 81.8% of the placebo group showed improvement in major symptoms; at day 14, 78.2% of the formula group were asymptomatic versus a placebo group of whom 40.9% had residual symptoms. The between-group differences did not reach statistical significance. The intervention was a multi-herb formula, not Huai Hua Mi alone, and the sample was small, so this supports safety more than efficacy.
Alleviating Effect of a Flower Extract of Styphnolobium japonicum L. on Symptoms of Experimentally Induced Osteoarthritis in Rats
A flower extract of S. japonicum reduced symptoms in a chemically induced rat osteoarthritis model. This is an animal study of an extract of the flower, and it addresses an indication outside the traditional blood-cooling and haemostatic use of the drug; it is included as evidence that flower extracts are pharmacologically active and tolerated in rodents, not as support for a clinical claim.
Effects of different postharvest drying processes on flavonoid content and enzymatic activity of Styphnolobium japonicum (L.) Schott flowers for industrial and medicinal use
UPLC-DAD comparison of sun, steam, microwave, hot-air and freeze drying of fresh flowers and flower buds. Rutin content in dried buds ranged from 18.91% (hot air, 100 C) to 30.53% (sun dried), and in dried open flowers from 10.63% to 34.13%. The authors purified the responsible rutin-hydrolysing enzyme, about 38 kDa, and showed it converts rutin specifically to quercetin. Drying conditions that inactivate this enzyme preserve rutin, which is why the same batch of bud can pass or fail the pharmacopoeial assay depending on how it was dried.
Historical Texts
Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing
Han dynastyRi Hua Zi Ben Cao
Five DynastiesBen Cao Gang Mu
Ming dynastyReferences
- He X, Bai Y, Zhao Z, Wang X, Fang J, Huang L, Zeng M, Zhang Q, Zhang Y, Zheng X. Local and traditional uses, phytochemistry, and pharmacology of Sophora japonica L.: A review . Journal of Ethnopharmacology (2016) [DOI]
- Kim K-A, Park P-W, Park J-Y. Short-term effect of quercetin on the pharmacokinetics of fexofenadine, a substrate of P-glycoprotein, in healthy volunteers . European Journal of Clinical Pharmacology (2009) [DOI]
- Mohos V, Fliszar-Nyul E, Ungvari O, Kuffa K, Needs PW, Kroon PA, Telbisz A, Ozvegy-Laczka C, Poor M. Inhibitory Effects of Quercetin and Its Main Methyl, Sulfate, and Glucuronic Acid Conjugates on Cytochrome P450 Enzymes, and on OATP, BCRP and MRP2 Transporters . Nutrients (2020) [DOI]
- Shi P, Liao J, Duan T, Wu Q, Huang X, Pei X, Wang C. Chemical composition and pharmacological properties of Flos sophorae immaturus, Flos sophorae and Fructus sophorae: a review . Journal of Future Foods (2023) [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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