Safflower(honghua)

Latin name: Flos carthami

English name: Safflower

  Invigorates circulation, breaks up blood stasis condition, and promotes menstruation: rheumatoid arthritis, injuries from impact, swollen boils, irregular menses, pain in stopping of menses, pain from blood stasis after birth. Small amount can invigorate circulation and large amount can get rid of blood clots. It is an important herb in blood stasis therapy and often is prescribed with tao ren. To invigorate circulation, it is often used with dang gui, chuan xiong, shao yao. to rid of blood stasis, it is used with sanleng, e zhu, and da huang .

Medical function:

1). Cardio-vascular system
It can mildly stimulate the heart, lowers the resistance of coronary arteries, improves circulation and provides the amount of blood flow to the heart muscle and provides nutrition to the heart muscles. Large amount has an inhibitory effect.
2). Effect on platelets
It can prevent the coagulation of the platelets thus inhibits the formation of thrombosis.
3). Effect on uterus
Small amount can increase the rhythmic contraction of the pregnant uterus. Large amount can cause constriction and spasm

.4). Provides protection for the brain in case of oxygen deprivation. Studies show that it can increase the treshold of rat in oxygen deprivation
5). Lower lipids
6). anti-bacterial, anti-fungal,
7). analgesic,
8). diuretic,
9). immune stimulant, 
10). anti-inflammatory
11). anti-spasmodic,
12). emmenagogue (induce menses flow), 
13). diaphoretic (induce perspiration), 
14). induce interferon.