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
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

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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    resembling those of the ts‘z‘ hi [spiny thistle. See 83]. Sometimes the flowers are yellowish white. After summer it produces seeds and in autumn the plant withers. The root resembles ginger, is beset with radical fibres. Its skin is black, the heart is yellowish white, contains a resinous juice of a purplish (brown) colour. T‘ao Hung-king distinguishes two kinds of shu. His pai (white) shu is the same as the yang fa of the Rh ya [see Rh ya, 8]. At present it is found on the high mountains in the prefectures of Hang chou [in Che kiaug, App. 58], Yiie chou [in Che kiang, App. 418], in Shu chou [in An hui, App. 294], in Siian chou [in An hui, App. 315]. Its leaves stand opposite each other, are covered with hair. The stem is square, on its top are the flowers. They are of a pale purple colour, or blue, or red. The root is branched. That from the violet flowered kind yields the best drug. By the drug shu mentioned in ancient prescriptions always the pai shu is to be understood. Li Shi-chen says that the pai shu plant resembles the hi (thistle). The taste of the root is like ginger and mustard. It is much cultivated in Yang chou [Che kiang, Kiang su, App. 400] and also known under the name of jjfc or shu from Wu [Che kiang, Kiang su, App. 389]. The ancient prescriptions do not discriminate between the white and the red shu. It was only in later times that the latter was distinguished and termed ts'ang shu. The jjt ts‘ang shu is first mentioned by K‘OU TsUNG- shi [12th cent.] as a succulent root of the size of a finger, with a gray skin and of a pungent, bitter taste. It is used in the same way as the pai shu, which is sweet. Li Siii-chen identifies the ts'ang shu with the chli (red) shu which is mentioned in the Pie lu, in the Rh ya [159] and by T‘ao Hung-king [e. supra]. It is also known