Korean Children Were Hit With This Plant. Their Grandmothers Made Medicine From It.Lespedeza bicolor · 싸리

 Korean Children Were Hit With This Plant. Their Grandmothers Made Medicine From It.

Lespedeza bicolor · 싸리

Every Korean of a certain age knows 싸리 by its function before its name. It was the broom in the yard — stems bundled and tied, swept across dirt floors and earthen courtyards. It was the fence material — flexible branches woven between posts to make walls around vegetable gardens. And for children who misbehaved, it was the switch: a slender, whippy stem cut from the shrub growing at the edge of every yard and hillside in the country, applied briefly but memorably to the back of the legs.

The plant was everywhere. It was used for everything. And then, somewhere in the twentieth century, the dirt floors and earthen courtyards disappeared, the woven fences gave way to concrete block walls, and 싸리 retreated from daily life. To see it in flower today — as it is right now, in late June, the arching branches hung with small pink-purple blooms — is, for anyone who grew up before all of that changed, something slightly unexpected.

 What It Is

Lespedeza bicolor belongs to the Fabaceae family — the legumes — which means it fixes nitrogen in the soil and improves whatever ground it grows in. It is native to eastern Asia: Korea, China, Japan, and southeastern Siberia, where it grows on hillsides, at forest edges, and along the disturbed margins of fields and roads. The English common name is shrub lespedeza or bicolor lespedeza, names that are accurate but carry none of the cultural weight of the Korean 싸리.

The genus Lespedeza contains dozens of species, and Korea has several native ones. 

 L. bicolor is the large shrubby type — the one that reaches two to three meters, the one whose stems were substantial enough to cut and bundle and use. Smaller annual relatives like 참싸리 and 조록싸리 grow alongside it in similar habitats, and the distinction between species mattered less in traditional use than the overall category of 싸리: useful, flexible, abundant, free.

In the United States, L. bicolor was introduced as a wildlife habitat plant and is now considered invasive in parts of the southeastern states — which says something about how well-adapted it is to disturbed ground and open hillsides.

 The Flowers, Which Most People Never Noticed

The flowers are the part of 싸리 that traditional Korean life largely ignored. They are small — typical legume flowers, with a broad upper petal and two lateral wings framing a central keel — in shades of pink, magenta, and purple, appearing in loose racemes along the branch tips from late June through August. They are genuinely pretty, in the way that small flowers on an arching summer shrub tend to be, and they attract bees and butterflies in numbers.

The reason most Koreans never particularly noticed them is that 싸리 was a utilitarian plant. You cut it, bundled it, wove it, or switched children with it. You did not stop to look at the flowers. The shift in how Koreans encounter this plant — from a domestic resource to something seen on a walk along a riverbank — has made the flowers visible in a way they weren't before.

The leaves are trifoliate, each leaflet broadly oval and rounded at the tip, arranged alternately along arching brown stems. The overall habit is graceful in the way of plants that evolved to grow at the edges of forests — angling toward light, flexible enough to bend without breaking, efficient with whatever space is available.

 What It Was Used For, Beyond the Obvious

In traditional Korean herbal medicine, the stems and leaves of 싸리 are recorded under the name 호지자 (胡枝子), described as sweet in taste, neutral in nature, and non-toxic. The recorded uses include moistening the lungs, clearing heat, promoting urination, treating coughs and bronchitis, stopping bleeding, and addressing fever and malaria-like symptoms. The plant was also used for skin fungal conditions — a use that modern research has since connected to the plant's tannin content and antimicrobial compounds.

More recent pharmacological studies have found that L. bicolor extracts have protective effects against diabetic nephropathy — kidney damage caused by prolonged high blood sugar — with a 2019 study published in the Journal of Clinical Medicine identifying the plant's ability to reduce methylglyoxal-induced glucotoxicity in kidney cells. A Korean patent filed for a hair loss prevention formulation based on 싸리 extract notes the plant's long traditional use for skin conditions and its demonstrated skin cell regeneration capacity.

The genus Lespedeza has been used in traditional medicine in Korea and Japan to treat skin rashes, inflammatory conditions, and to support liver function, with high tannin content contributing to astringent and antibacterial properties useful in wound healing.

The flowers and young leaves are also edible. Young leaves and stems can be cooked, flowers are edible cooked, seeds can be boiled and eaten with rice, and the leaves can be used as a tea substitute. These uses were practical in times of food scarcity and are documented across the region. The flowers in particular, eaten fresh or made into 화전 (flower pancakes) in the way that azalea and forsythia flowers are used in Korean spring cooking, represent the gentler end of a plant that Koreans mostly encountered at the harder end.

 How to Identify It

Lespedeza bicolor in summer is an arching shrub, typically one to two meters tall in open conditions, with slender brown stems that bend gracefully under their own weight. The trifoliate leaves — three leaflets per leaf, each broadly oval with a rounded or slightly notched tip — are bright green on the upper surface and somewhat paler below. The stems are not thorny.

The flowers appear from late June through August, small pink-to-magenta legume flowers in loose, hanging racemes along the branch tips. Up close the two-tone coloration is visible — typically a brighter magenta standard petal with darker veining and slightly bluer-purple wing petals. After flowering, the plant produces small, flat, oval seed pods containing single seeds.

In Korea, 싸리 grows on dry hillsides, at forest margins, along roadsides and riverbanks, and in any disturbed ground that gets adequate sun. It is most visible right now, in late June and July, when the flowers are open against summer green.

The switch, the broom, and the fence — three objects from a domestic world that has largely passed. The plant that supplied all three is still growing on Korean hillsides, flowering each summer, fixing nitrogen quietly in the soil the way legumes do. It no longer gets cut very often. The dirt floors are gone. The children's legs are safe.

But the flowers are there, if you stop to look at them.

Disclaimer: This post is for educational and informational purposes only. 

While Lespedeza bicolor (싸리) has documented traditional uses as food and medicine, do not consume or use this plant medicinally without consulting a qualified healthcare professional. Do not consume any wild plant unless you are fully confident in your identification. The author is not a licensed botanist, herbalist, or medical professional. Nothing in this post constitutes medical advice. The author accepts no responsibility for any adverse effects arising from the use of plants described in this post.