Qiang Wei Hua

Qiang Wei Hua is the dried flower of Rosa multiflora Thunb. (Rosaceae), the multiflora or rambler rose, a vigorous arching deciduous shrub 2 to 5 m tall native to China, Korea, and Japan and widely naturalized elsewhere. Stems bear paired recurved prickles and pinnately compound leaves with five to nine serrate leaflets and fringed stipules. Numerous small fragrant white to pink flowers about 1.5 to 2 cm across appear in pyramidal panicles in late spring, followed by small red hips. The flowers are gathered just before opening and shade-dried. In traditional Chinese medicine the flower is bitter, astringent, and cool, entering the Stomach and Liver channels; it clears summerheat, harmonizes the stomach, stops bleeding, and is used for summerheat thirst, hematemesis, epistaxis, malaria, and chronic diarrhea.