Mei Gui Hua (玫瑰花; Méi Guī Huā; Latin: Rosae Rugosae Flos; English: rose flower) is the dried flower bud of the rugosa rose — the deep-purple buds with a heavy sweet scent that have been steeped as tea for a thousand years and pinned to lapels each spring — used whole, unprocessed, or lightly honey- or wine-processed. It is warm, sweet, and slightly bitter, enters the Liver and Spleen channels, and its core actions are to regulate qi and release constraint, and to invigorate blood and disperse stasis. It is the gentle flower for a bound-up chest and a difficult period. The usual amount is 3–6 g in a decoction, added near the end. It steeps beautifully as a tea.
It is not Yue Ji Hua. China rose is also warm and sweet, but its center is invigorating blood and regulating the menses — for marked period stasis; this flower regulates qi and releases constraint while also touching the blood — gentler, and it also looks after the spleen-stomach. It is not the garden rose you cut for a vase either; the medicinal material is the checked, dried bud. In yin-deficiency with fire — a constant dry mouth, a red tongue without a coat — or with heavy periods, using it on your own is a poor match. Chest-flank pain or period pain that keeps worsening needs a clinic first. Do not take it yourself for a long time.
It is used most often for three patterns:
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Stuffiness and pain in the chest and flanks, a low or irritable mood, stomach discomfort, poor appetite, easy deep sighs — liver qi bound up
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Period irritability, sluggish scanty flow, dark flow with clots, breast fullness, flank stabbing pain — qi stagnation blocking the blood
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Yin-deficiency with fire, or heavy periods — skip it
Warm, sweet, and slightly bitter, it is not a daily "mood flower tea" to keep drinking. Regulating qi and moving blood when there is no constraint, or in yin-deficiency with fire, stirs the heat instead of helping.
When a fast pace and a tight mood bind the liver qi, the chest and flanks fill, the mood sinks, and the stomach feels uneasy; when the bound qi blocks the blood, periods come sluggish with dark clotted flow and breast fullness. Mei Gui Hua is warm, sweet, and slightly bitter. It frees the liver and moves the blood, which is why it appears in Mei Gui Jie Yu Cha (Rose Constraint-Release Tea)–type formulas. It moves more than it holds. In yin-deficiency with fire, or with heavy periods, more makes it worse.
Mei Gui Hua is not a catch-all mood or period flower. In yin-deficiency with fire, with heavy periods, in pregnancy, or with no constraint, using it alone is a poor match. Whether it belongs in a formula, and at what dose, should be decided by a licensed Chinese medicine practitioner after pattern diagnosis.
