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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$Cust. Med., p. 192 (115, 116):—Yuan slien exported in 1885 from Ning po 4,700 piculs.—Ibid., 493 (1563) Places of production : Che kiting.—According to Braun, [Hank. Medd] exported also from Hankow. So moku, XI, 57 :— Scrophularia Old hand, Oliv. The above Chinese description might perhaps agree. 19.—ilf! ti gii. P., XIH, 30.— T., CXXXVII. Pen king:—Ti yd (ground elm), leaves used in medicine. Taste of the slightly cold. Nou-poisonous. The root and the root bitter. Nature Pie la:—The ti gii grows in Thing po [in Ho nau, App. 379] and Yuan kii [in Shan tung, App. 415] in mountain valleys. The root is dug up in the 2nd and 8th months and dried in the sun. The same work says the jf^ ^ suan che grows in the mountains of Ch‘ang yang [in Shan tung, App. 7]. Comp. infra Li Shi-chen. T\ao Hung-king :—The leaves of ti gii resemble elm leaves, but are longer and, as they cover the ground when the plant first begins to grow, the latter is called ti gii or ground elm. Its flowers and seeds (or fruits) are of a brown colour like the shi [sov. See Hot. sin., II, 355] wherefore it is also called 3? gii shi. The root is used for fermenting liquors. The Taoists burn it and use it for alchemistic purposes (?). The mountain people substitute the leaves for tea. They may also be eaten fried. Su Sung [lltli cent.]:—The ti gii is a common plant in the plain, on meadows and marshes. From the perennial root, in the 3rd month, the leaves issue. They cover the ground. After this a single stem shoots forth, from three to four feet high. It divides and produces leaves which$