Botanicon Sinicum: notes on Chinese botany from native and Western sources. Part 3, Botanical investigations into the materia medica of the ancient Chinese / [E. Bretschneider].

Emil Bretschneider

Date:: 1895

Credit: Botanicon Sinicum: notes on Chinese botany from native and Western sources. Part 3, Botanical investigations into the materia medica of the ancient Chinese / [E. Bretschneider]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$all are eaten. For medical use the root is steeped in wine or administered in powder. The leaves much resemble the leaves of the poisonous plant kou wen [see 1G2], and people frequently confound this plant with the huang tsing. In Taoist books the huang tsiug is also called fll] \ fj| sieu jen yii Hang (extra ration of the immortals). The Taoists consider the huang tsing to be a kind of chi (plant of immortality) and therefore call it also jg; ^ huang (yellow) chi, tj Si wa ^ c^Ll' Lei Hiao [5tli cent.]:—The kou wen [y. supra], which is injurious to life, resembles the huang tsing. Su Rung [7th cent.]:—When growing in a fat soil, the root of the huang tsing attains the size of a fist, but in poor soil it is not larger than the thumb. It is akin to the roei jui. The kou wen is quite a different plant. Ch‘en Ts‘ang k‘i [8th cent.]:—The true huang tsing has opposite leaves. There is one kind of it in which the leaves are all inclined on one side. This is called )f$j- jSien tsing (jSien = inclined on one side). T‘ao Huxg-king is incorrect in stating that the kou wen resembles the huang tsing. Su Sung [11th cent.]:—The huang tsing is as common in North China as in the South. The best drug comes from Sung slian [in Honan, App. 317] and Mao shau [in Kiang su, App. 218]. The plant grows from one to two feet high. The leaves resemble bamboo-leaves, but are shorter. They stand opposite, two and two together. The root is soft, of a yellow colour, its lower part is red. In the fourth month the plant opens its greenish white flowers, which resemble the flowers of small beans. The seed is white, resembles millet. The yellow root, which has some resemblance to young ginger-root, is very sweet and of a pleasant taste. It is dug up in the second month, boiled,$