In late spring, the locust trees blossom, and the fragrance of the flowers fills the air. Of course, eating them fresh is just a casual and temporary enjoyment. There are various ways to cook and eat locust flowers. The rutin in locust flowers can strengthen capillaries and prevent capillary fragility, which can cause hypertension and internal bleeding.
Simultaneously, locust flowers contain sophoradiol and vitamin A, which can be used as a medicine to treat hemorrhoids, bloody stools, and vomiting caused by blood heat. They can be taken internally or used externally.
The main functions of locust flowers are to clear heat, cool blood, and stop bleeding. They can treat intestinal wind-induced bleeding, hemorrhoids, urinary bleeding, blood strangury, metrorrhagia and metrostaxis, epistaxis, and dysentery with bloody or white discharge. They can also be used to prevent strokes.
The locust tree (as described in "Er Ya") is also known as bean locust, white locust, fine-leaf locust, golden medicine tree, and house-protecting tree.
The deciduous tree can grow up to 25 meters tall. The bark is gray or dark gray, rough with vertical cracks. The inner bark is bright yellow and has a foul smell. The branches are brown, green when young, and have hair and obvious lenticels.
The leaves are odd-pinnately compound and alternate, reaching up to 25 centimeters long. The leaf stalks are swollen at the base. There are 7 to 15 leaflets, elliptic-oblong or lanceolate, 2.5 to 5 centimeters long, 1.5 to 2.6 centimeters wide, with pointed tips and rounded or broadly cuneate bases. The upper surface is green and slightly shiny, while the lower surface is covered in short white hairs.
The leaflets have a length of 2.5 millimeters. The stipules are sickle-shaped and fall off early. The inflorescence is a terminal raceme. The flowers are creamy white, 1.5 centimeters long. The calyx is bell-shaped with 5 shallow lobes. The corolla is butterfly-shaped, with a banner petal that is heart-shaped and has short claws and faint purple veins. There are 10 unequal stamens, and the ovary is tubular with slender hairs and a curved style.
The pods are 2.5 to 5 centimeters long, segmented, bead-like, hairless, green, fleshy, non-splitting, and the seeds are tightly packed together. There are 1 to 6 seeds, dark brown and kidney-shaped. The flowering period is from July to August, and the fruiting period is from October to November.
Locust flowers grow on slopes, plains, or are planted in gardens. They are distributed in most parts of China.
