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.