Flueggea suffruticosa (Pall.) Baill.

The leaves and flowers of Flueggea suffruticosa are used as medicine for the treatment of infantile paralysis, neurasthemia, and facial paralysis.

Shrubs 1-3 m tall, densely branched, glabrous; branchlets ± distinctly angular when young, greenish, smooth, later subterete, yellow-brownish, not conspicuously lenticellate; ultimate branchlets not spine-tipped. Stipules ovate-lanceolate, ca. 1 mm, persistent; petiole 2-8 mm; leaf blade elliptic or oblong-elliptic, rarely obovate, 1.5-8 × 1-3 cm, papery, base obtuse to cuneate, margin entire or sometimes irregularly serrate or undulate-toothed, apex acute to obtuse, greenish abaxially; lateral veins 5-8 pairs, raised on both surfaces, reticulate veins slightly prominent. Plants dioecious. Inflorescences axillary, cymose. Male flowers 3-18-clustered; pedicels 2.5-5.5 mm; sepals usually 5, elliptic, ovate, or rotund, 1-1.5 × 0.5-1.5 mm, margins entire or obscurely serrulate; disk glands 5; stamens 5; filaments 1-2.2 mm; anthers ovate, 0.5-1 mm; rudimentary ovary terete, 0.6-4 mm high, apex 2- or 3-lobed. Female flowers: pedicels 2-15 mm; sepals 5, elliptic to ovate, 1-1.5 mm, subentire, 1-veined and carinate on back; disk patelliform, entire or subentire; ovary ovoid, (2 or)3-locular; styles 1-1.8 mm, free or connate at base, erect or recurved. Fruiting pedicels 2-15 mm; sepals persistent; capsule triquetrous-oblate, 2-5 mm in diam., reddish brown when ripe, prominently reticulate veined, 3-lobed. Seeds plano-convex, ca. 3 mm, minutely granular- verruculose. Fl. Mar-Aug, fr. Jun-Nov.

Throughout China except Gansu, Qinghai, Xinjiang, Xizang [Japan, Korea, Mongolia, Russia].

Scrubby slopes, forest margins; 500-2500 m.

Pharnaceum suffruticosum Pallas, Reise Russ. Reich. 3(2): 716. 1776; Acidoton fluggeoides (Müller Argoviensis) Kuntze; A. ramiflorus (Persoon) Kuntze; Flueggea flueggeoides (Müller Argoviensis) Webster; F. ussuriensis Pojarkova; Geblera chinensis Ruprecht; G. suffruticosa (Pallas) Fischer & C. A. Meyer; G. sungariensis Ruprecht; Phyllanthus argyi H. Léveillé; P. fluggeoides Müller Argoviensis; P. ramiflorus (Aiton) Persoon; Securinega fluggeoides (Müller Argoviensis) Müller Argoviensis; S. japonica Miquel; S. microcarpa B. C. Ding & Y. Wang; S. ramiflora (Aiton) Müller Argoviensis; S. suffruticosa (Pallas) Rehder; S. suffruticosa f. japonica Hurusawa; S. suffruticosa var. japonica (Miquel) Hurusawa; S. suffruticosa var. umamiensis Hurusawa; Xylophylla ramiflora Aiton.

Flueggea suffruticosa is a species of flowering plant in the family Phyllanthaceae. It is a deciduous shrub that is widely distributed in Asia, America, Europe, and Africa. It is one of the 50 fundamental herbs used in traditional Chinese medicine, where it has the name yī yè qiū (Chinese: 一叶秋).