Hong Tian Kui

Begonia palmata D.Don (Begoniaceae), known in Chinese folk medicine as Hong Tian Kui or "red sky aubergine," is a perennial rhizomatous herb 25-70 cm tall, native to broadleaf forests and shaded moist ravines in southern China, the Himalayas, and northern Indochina at 500-2400 m elevation. The succulent reddish stems arise from creeping rhizomes. Leaves are alternate, asymmetrically broadly ovate, 10-20 cm long, palmately 5-7 lobed with serrate margins, dark green and bristly above, often reddish-purple beneath, on long petioles. The monoecious flowers are pink to rose-red, borne in axillary dichotomous cymes; male flowers have four tepals and many stamens, female flowers four to five tepals and a three-winged inferior ovary that develops into a fleshy three-angled winged capsule. In folk and TCM use the whole plant or rhizome is collected to clear heat, cool the blood, dispel stasis, reduce swelling, and treat traumatic injury, cough with blood, and snake bite.