Li Pi

Li Pi is the dried peel of Asian pears, taken from any of several closely related Pyrus species native to East Asia — chiefly P. bretschneideri (Chinese white pear), P. pyrifolia (sand or nashi pear), and P. ussuriensis (Ussurian pear). These are medium-sized deciduous trees in the Rosaceae family reaching 8-15 m tall, with rounded crowns, ovate to broadly elliptic finely serrate leaves 5-12 cm long that turn yellow-orange in autumn, and showy white five-petalled flowers borne in corymbs in early spring. The fruit is a globose to oblate or pyriform pome 4-12 cm across with crisp juicy flesh and a pale yellow to russet-brown skin dotted with conspicuous lenticels. The thin peel, with its slightly gritty texture from stone-cell deposits, is the medicinal material — strip-shaped fragments in trade, pale yellow-brown on the outer surface.