Lian
Qiao
Oleaceae
Scientific Name：Forsythia suspensa (Thunb.) Vahl
Common Names：Yellow Flower Stem, Huang Shou Dan
Morphological Characteristics：Deciduous shrub. Branches are spreading or drooping, brown, brownish-yellow, or light yellow-brown; young branches are yellow-brown or gray-brown, slightly quadrangular, sparsely covered with lenticels, with hollow internodes and solid pith at the nodes. Leaves are usually simple or 3-lobed to trifoliate, ovate, broad-ovate, or elliptical-ovate to elliptical, 2-10 cm long, 1.5-5 cm wide, with a sharp apex, base rounded, broadly wedge-shaped to wedge-shaped, leaf margins serrated or coarsely serrated except at the base, dark green above, pale yellow-green below, glabrous on both sides; petioles are 0.8-1.5 cm long, glabrous. Flowers are usually solitary or in clusters of 2 to several in leaf axils, blooming before the leaves; pedicels are 5-6 mm long; calyx is green, lobes are oblong or oblong-elliptic, 5-7 mm long, with blunt or sharp tips, fringed edges, nearly equal in length to the corolla tube; corolla is yellow, lobes are inversely ovate or oblong, 1.2-2 cm long, 6-10 mm wide; in flowers with a pistil 5-7 mm long, the stamens are 3-5 mm long, and in flowers with stamens 6-7 mm long, the pistil is about 3 mm long. Fruits are ovoid, oval, or elongated oval, 1.2-2.5 cm long, 0.6-1.2 cm wide, with a beak-like tip, surface sparsely covered with lenticels; pedicels are 0.7-1.5 cm long. Flowering period is from March to April, fruiting period is from July to September.
Habitat：Lian Qiao prefers sunlight and has a certain degree of shade tolerance; it thrives in warm, humid climates and is also cold-resistant; it tolerates drought and poor soil but is sensitive to waterlogging; it can grow in neutral, slightly acidic, or alkaline soils.
Distribution：Distributed in Hebei, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Shandong, western Anhui, Henan, Hubei, and Sichuan in China. It grows in shrublands on hillsides, under forests, or in grasslands, or in sparse forests in valleys and ravines, at altitudes of 250-2200 meters.
Medicinal Part：The dried fruit of Lian Qiao.
Properties and Effects：Bitter in taste, slightly cold in nature. It enters the Lung, Heart, and Small Intestine meridians. It has the effects of clearing heat and detoxifying, reducing swelling and dispersing nodules, and dispersing wind-heat.
The Story of Lian Qiao
Long ago, in the mountains of Motianling, there lived a brother and sister named Da Niu and Lian Qiao, who were inseparable. One day, Lian Qiao went to the mountain to bring food to her brother. As she reached a hillside, she suddenly saw a large python coiling around a child. She rushed forward, picked up a stone, and relentlessly struck the python. In pain, the python released the child and lunged at Lian Qiao with its gaping mouth. The child was saved, but Lian Qiao was killed by the python.
Not long after Lian Qiao’s death, small trees began to grow beside her grave. The trees grew more numerous and larger, and people said that these were transformed from Lian Qiao to commemorate her, so they named this tree “Lian Qiao Tree.”
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