TieLi Northern Schisandra

TieLi Northern Schisandra

TieLi Northern Schisandra is a geographically protected product.

　　TieLi Northern Schisandra is a type of traditional Chinese medicinal herb and a specialty of TieLi City, Heilongjiang Province. It is a product protected under China’s National Geographical Indication. TieLi City in Heilongjiang Province is the optimal growing region for Northern Schisandra, where the product boasts high quality and rich active ingredients, earning an excellent reputation in the domestic Chinese herbal medicine market.

　　　　Schisandra is a deciduous woody vine from the Magnoliaceae family, reaching up to 8 meters, and can grow as tall as 15 meters. Its stems are soft yet tough, twining rightward around other trees and shrubs, making it a layer-straddling plant within forests. The root system is well-developed, though the main root is not prominent, featuring dense fibrous roots. There are also numerous creeping stems distributed in the shallow soil layer, spreading horizontally, also known as runners. These have nodes, with buds on the nodes that produce sprouts, which emerge above ground to form new plants, thereby expanding the population. Mature Schisandra vines have dark brown bark, while young stems are purplish-red or light yellow, densely covered with round, raised lenticels. The leaves are alternate, simple, broadly ovate to elliptical, measuring 5–9 cm long and 2.5 cm wide, with acute tips, wedge-shaped bases, and sparsely serrated margins with glandular dots. The leaf surface is green and glossy, while the underside is light green with sparse hairs along the veins. The petiole is 2–3 cm long.

　　　　The buds are either single or mixed; mixed buds contain 2–3 flowers, sometimes 4–5. The flowers are unisexual, mostly monoecious and rarely dioecious. There are 6–9 tepals, milky white in color. The stamens number 5–6, about 2 mm long, and the pistils consist of separate carpels arranged in a raised receptacle. During fruiting, the receptacle elongates into an aggregate fruit resembling a spike-like multiple fruit. The fruit is an aggregate berry, nearly spherical, bright red when ripe, about 1 cm in diameter, containing 1–2 kidney-shaped, light orange-yellow seeds with smooth surfaces. The flowering period is May–June, and the fruiting period is August–September.

　　TieLi Northern Schisandra

　　　　Value:

　　　　The fruit of TieLi Northern Schisandra contains about 3% volatile oil, 12% citric acid, 10% malic acid, and small amounts of tartaric acid and monosaccharides. The seeds contain 33% fatty oil, 1.6% volatile oil, schisandrin, schisandrol, vitamin C, vitamin E, and more. The effective components of TieLi Northern Schisandra are lignans, including various types of schisandrins and related lignan compounds. The peel and seed coat contain 5% lignans, the root and rhizome skin 4.88–12.4%, and the stem skin 5.6–9.9%, with the highest content during the flowering period in June–July. Therefore, both the stem skin and the fruit share equally potent active ingredients and offer similarly diverse uses.

　　　　TieLi Northern Schisandra is highly popular in both domestic and international markets, showing great market potential and high value. Cultivating TieLi Northern Schisandra in forest gaps, mountainous areas, and the open spaces along rivers near forest edges is a promising industry. The fruits can be sold fresh, dried for storage, or further processed, which holds significant positive implications for the economic development of mountainous regions.

　　　　Features:

　　　　TieLi Northern Schisandra is one of China’s renowned medicinal plants, naturally distributed in mountainous areas such as the Lesser Khingan Mountains, Wandashan Mountains, Zhangguangcai Mountains, and Laoye Mountains in Heilongjiang Province. It also has scattered occurrences in the Greater Khingan Mountains. Other distribution areas include Jilin, Liaoning, provinces in North and East China, as well as Korea, Japan, and the Russian Far East. The dried fruits of Schisandra, mainly produced in the Northeast and Hebei regions, are commercially referred to as “TieLi Northern Schisandra.” Fresh TieLi Northern Schisandra fruits are bright red berries, juicy, sour with a slight astringency and a prickly ash-like aroma. The fresh juice serves as a raw material for processing natural health drinks; the dried fruit, dark purple-red and wrinkled, is a traditional Chinese medicinal herb that stimulates the central nervous and respiratory systems, regulates the heart, liver, and blood pressure, enhances vision and hearing, promotes bile secretion, and boosts antibacterial capabilities.