The common uses and characteristics of orange flowers 《The Common Uses and Characteristics of Orange Flowers》

Daidaihua Daily Use Characteristics

The editor will answer your questions about the propagation of Daidaihua, its daily use characteristics, which will definitely bring you some help. Let's learn about it together!

Daidaihua, also known as Huiqingcheng or Daidai, has a strong fragrance, beautiful fruits, and is an excellent potted flower for courtyard and indoor display. The flowers, like white magnolia and jasmine, can be used to make scented tea, and can also be used in medicine and for extracting essential oils. Daidaihua is a variant of sour orange. The leaves are leathery, elliptical, and the petioles have broad wings. The flowers are white, solitary or in clusters in the axils of the leaves, extremely fragrant, and the fruits turn orange-yellow in winter, hanging full of branches, very pleasing to the eye. In the following summer, the fruits turn green again, hence the name "Huiqingcheng." The fruits of Daidaihua usually remain on the plant for 2-3 years without falling, with flowers and fruits coexisting in alternate years, like a "three-generations-under-one-roof" family, thus named Daidai, an important woody fragrant flower and ornamental fruit plant. Potted for ornamental purposes, it is very elegant.

Daidaihua prefers a warm and humid environment, loves sunlight, fertilizer, and is slightly cold-resistant (more cold-resistant than hollyhock and white magnolia). In southern regions with better microclimate conditions, it can overwinter outdoors. Potted plants can overwinter in non-freezing indoor environments. It is not very demanding on soil, growing best in well-drained, fertile, loose, and organically rich slightly acidic sandy loam. The fruits can be used in medicine, known as Daidai, Daidaiyuan, and Suzhiqiao.

【Plant Morphology】Evergreen small tree, branches with sparse short spines, young branches angular. Leaves elliptical to ovate-elliptical, 5-10cm long, 2.5-5cm wide; petioles 2-2.5cm long, leaf wings reniform. Flowers in racemes; calyx 5-lobed, lobes ovate; flowers white, petals 5, 2-2.5cm long; stamens 21-24, usually 3-5 united. Fruits oblate, 7-8cm in diameter, not fragrant. Flowering period May to June, fruit maturity in December. Cultivated in low mountainous or hilly areas. Mainly produced in Jiangsu and Zhejiang.

【Harvesting and Processing】In July to August, pick unripe green fruits, cut them in half horizontally from the middle, and dry or dry in the sun.

【Characteristics】Processed medicinal materials are hemispherical, 3-4cm in diameter; the surface is greenish-yellow or grayish-brown, with net-like wrinkles, fruit stalk base with residual calyx; the outer fruit skin is 0.5-1cm thick, slightly outward, with 9-11 segments, each segment containing 1 to several unripe seeds, the central axis 4-8mm wide. Taste bitter and sour.

【Chemical Composition】Contains volatile oils, mainly limonene, and also contains decanal, nonanal, lauric acid, linalyl acetate, nerolyl acetate, geranyl acetate; also contains hesperidin, neohesperidin, etc.

【Taste and Properties】Slightly cold in nature, bitter and sour in taste.

【Functions and Indications】Regulates qi and relieves middle jiao stagnation, aids digestion, and resolves phlegm. Used for chest and abdominal fullness and pain, food stagnation, phlegm retention, and prolapse of the rectum.

That's all for the characteristics of Daidaihua's daily use. I hope this article can bring you some help!