Chinese Herbs — Plain-Language Monographs

人参rén shēn Panax ginseng · Asian ginseng The emperor of tonics — when the qi itself is exhausted, this is the root the tradition reaches for. Handle it with respect; emperors are not for every day.

枸杞子gǒu qǐ zǐ Lycium barbarum · goji berry, wolfberry The little red berries in every grandmother's soup pot. Gentle enough for the kitchen, respected enough for the pharmacy — food and medicine refusing to be separated.

黄芪huáng qí Astragalus mongholicus · astragalus root The quiet worker. It lifts the qi and steadies the outside — I give it to those who catch every cold that passes the gate.

甘草gān cǎo Glycyrrhiza uralensis · licorice root The peacemaker of the cabinet. It sweetens, softens, and keeps the other herbs from quarreling — though even peacemakers have limits.

灵芝líng zhī Ganoderma lucidum · reishi mushroom The mushroom of immortality, if you believe the old stories. I don't promise immortality — but a calmer spirit and a quieter cough were always the honest claims.

当归dāng guī Angelica sinensis · dong quai When the blood is tired, this is the first drawer my hand goes to. It nourishes and moves at once — a rare talent, and the reason they call it the women's ginseng.

五味子wǔ wèi zǐ Schisandra chinensis · schisandra berry The five-flavor berry — sour, sweet, bitter, pungent, and salty in one small fruit. The tradition gave it one job above all: to stop what is leaking.

冬虫夏草dōng chóng xià cǎo Ophiocordyceps sinensis · cordyceps, caterpillar fungus Winter worm, summer grass — the strangest drawer in my cabinet. A fungus that grows from a caterpillar, prized for steadying the breath and warming the kidneys.

大枣dà zǎo Ziziphus jujuba · jujube date, red date The red date sweetens the pot the way a good host sweetens a room. Half my formulas end with the same instruction — brew with a few slices of ginger and a jujube or two.

柴胡chái hú Bupleurum chinense · bupleurum root The unknotter. When qi is stuck — in the flanks, in the temper, in the space between one sigh and the next — this is the root the great formulas are built around.

菊花jú huā Chrysanthemum morifolium · chrysanthemum flower The autumn flower that cools a hot head. Red eyes, a tight brow, a long day of screens — I brew the yellow blossoms and tell people to drink it looking at something far away.

何首乌hé shǒu wū Polygonum multiflorum · fo-ti Named for a man whose hair turned black again, or so the story goes. I keep this drawer a little higher than the others — read the safety section before you reach for it.

白芍bái sháo Paeonia lactiflora · white peony root The garden's most beautiful flower keeps its medicine in the root. Where dang gui feeds the blood, bai shao holds it — softening a tense liver the way rain softens a field.

白术bái zhú Atractylodes macrocephala · white atractylodes rhizome Nobody writes poems about bai zhu. It just shows up in half the great formulas and quietly keeps the digestion working — the cabinet's most dependable employee.

茯苓fú líng Poria cocos · poria, hoelen A humble white fungus that grows hidden on pine roots. It does its work the same way — quietly draining what shouldn't be there, calming what shouldn't be racing.

薄荷bò he Mentha haplocalyx · field mint A pinch of coolness added at the last minute, lid off, fire out. Mint is the breath of fresh air a stuffy formula — or a stuffy head — is waiting for.

生姜shēng jiāng Zingiber officinale · fresh ginger The kitchen's ambassador to the pharmacy. Half my prescriptions end "add a few slices of ginger" — it warms the middle, settles the stomach, and makes peace between herbs.

龙眼肉lóng yǎn ròu Dimocarpus longan · longan, dragon-eye fruit Dragon-eye fruit — sweet enough for dessert, kind enough for medicine. For the pale, tired, and sleepless, I'd rather prescribe something that tastes like this.

酸枣仁suān zǎo rén Ziziphus jujuba var. spinosa · sour jujube seed The tradition's sleep seed. When the heart is too tired to rest — that particular exhausted sleeplessness — this small kernel is the first thing the old formulas reach for.

远志yuǎn zhì Polygala tenuifolia · polygala, thinleaf milkwort root The name means "far-reaching will." The scholars' herb — for the mind that forgets, the heart that startles, and the thoughts that fog instead of flow.

木香mù xiāng Aucklandia costus · aucklandia, costus root The pharmacy's traffic officer. Rich tonic formulas can sit heavy in a weak stomach — a little of this fragrant root keeps everything moving through the intersection.

黄连huáng lián Coptis chinensis · coptis, goldthread — source of berberine The bitterest drawer I own — we say "as bitter as huang lian" the way you say "as cold as ice." Its yellow heart is berberine, which your supplement aisle has recently discovered.

白果bái guǒ Ginkgo biloba · ginkgo nut / ginkgo leaf The oldest tree on Earth keeps two medicines — my tradition used the nut for wheezing; yours brews the leaf for memory. Both deserve their fine print.

葛根gé gēn Pueraria montana var. lobata · kudzu root In America it ate the South; in my cabinet it eases the neck. The vine nobody can kill is also the classic herb for stiff shoulders, thirst, and the morning after.

黄芩huáng qín Scutellaria baicalensis · Baikal skullcap One of my three yellows — this one for the upper burner. Where huang lian cools the gut, huang qin cools the chest: hot coughs, bitter mouths, restless heat.

莲子lián zǐ Nelumbo nucifera · lotus seed The lotus wastes nothing — seed, leaf, root, even the bitter green heart inside the seed. The seed itself steadies what trembles and holds what leaks. Also: excellent in soup.

陈皮chén pí Citrus reticulata · aged tangerine peel The peel you were about to throw away, aged until it becomes medicine. "Chen" means aged — like a good friendship, it gets more valuable the longer it's kept.

阿胶ē jiāo Equus asinus (colla corii asini) · donkey-hide gelatin The strangest thing in my cabinet that isn't a caterpillar. An amber gelatin the empresses swore by — and a drawer where honesty requires talking about donkeys.

熟地黄shú dì huáng Rehmannia glutinosa · prepared rehmannia root Nine times steamed, nine times dried, until the root turns black as lacquer and sweet as dates. When the deepest reserves run dry, this is the drawer that refills them.

山药shān yào Dioscorea opposita · Chinese yam The mountain medicine you can serve for dinner. It steadies digestion, lungs, and kidneys all at once — gently, the way porridge is gentle.

山茱萸shān zhū yú Cornus officinalis · Asiatic cornelian cherry The sour little mountain fruit whose whole talent is holding on. Whatever the body is losing — sweat, essence, strength at the knees — this one grips.

牡丹皮mǔ dān pí Paeonia suffruticosa · tree peony root bark The king of flowers keeps a cooling medicine in its root bark. For heat that hides in the blood and flares at night, this is the quiet extinguisher.

泽泻zé xiè Alisma orientale · water plantain rhizome The marsh plant that teaches water where to go. Every rich tonic formula needs a drain — this is the one Liu Wei Di Huang Wan trusts.

丹参dān shēn Salvia miltiorrhiza · red sage root The crimson root the tradition trusted with the heart itself. One herb, they said, with the powers of four — though the fine print matters more here than anywhere.

三七sān qī Panax notoginseng · notoginseng, tienchi The battlefield root — it stops bleeding without trapping the bruise, which no other drawer manages. Soldiers carried it; so does every Chinese first-aid shelf since.

党参dǎng shēn Codonopsis pilosula · codonopsis, poor man's ginseng When the prescription says ginseng and the purse says otherwise, this is the drawer that opens. Gentler, cheaper, and honest about both.

金银花jīn yín huā Lonicera japonica · honeysuckle flower Gold-and-silver flower — each blossom opens white and turns yellow, two colors on one vine. The tradition's sweetest answer to heat and toxin.

连翘lián qiào Forsythia suspensa · forsythia fruit The spring hedge you know from front yards keeps a bitter fruit the tradition calls the sore's holy medicine. Honeysuckle's inseparable other half.

防风fáng fēng Saposhnikovia divaricata · siler root The name is the job description — "guard against wind." The gentlest of the wind-expellers, trusted even where stronger dispersers would do harm.

升麻shēng má Actaea cimicifuga · Chinese cimicifuga rhizome The name means "rising hemp" — and rising is the whole résumé. A few grams lift what has sagged, like a pole under a tent roof.

桔梗jié gěng Platycodon grandiflorus · balloon flower root The balloon flower's root is the pharmacy's boatman — it carries other herbs up to the throat and chest, and opens the lung's doors on the way.

牛蒡子niú bàng zǐ Arctium lappa · burdock fruit The burr that sticks to your socks holds seeds the tradition trusts with hot, swollen throats. Nature's velcro, repurposed as medicine.

淡豆豉dàn dòu chǐ Glycine max · bland fermented soybean Fermented soybeans, unsalted — the kitchen's douchi gone to medical school. The mildest way the tradition knows to open a fever's front door.

荆芥jīng jiè Schizonepeta tenuifolia · schizonepeta spike A mint-family herb so even-tempered it works both sides of the street — warm formulas and cool ones alike hire it to open the door.

淡竹叶dàn zhú yè Lophatherum gracile · lophatherum herb Bamboo-like leaves that cool the way a bamboo grove does — lightly, pleasantly, and mostly by letting the heat drain quietly away downstream.

芦根lú gēn Phragmites communis · reed rhizome The common reed of every riverbank, dug for its sweet water-storing root. When fever has drunk the body dry, this is the drawer that pours a glass.

小檗碱xiǎo bò jiǎn from Coptis, Phellodendron & Berberis species · berberine (alkaloid) Not a drawer in my cabinet but the yellow soul of three of them — the bitter alkaloid the internet discovered a few thousand years after we did, and promptly oversold.

杏仁xìng rén Prunus armeniaca · apricot kernel The seed of my own trees — the grove's namesake fruit keeps its medicine in the pit. The tradition prized it for cough, and respected it the way you respect anything with a locked door.

艾叶ài yè Artemisia argyi · Chinese mugwort The only herb in my cabinet I use more often as firewood than as tea — rolled, dried, and burned over the point instead of swallowed. Warmth, delivered by the leaf itself.

百合bǎi hé Lilium lancifolium · lily bulb A hundred petals folded into one bulb — the name means "hundred united." The tradition serves it where the lungs are dry and the heart won't settle, which is to say: convalescence.

石斛shí hú Dendrobium nobile & spp. · dendrobium stem An orchid that grows on rock and sells like jewelry — emperors hoarded it, counterfeiters imitate it, and all it ever claimed to do was put moisture back where illness spent it.

绞股蓝jiǎo gǔ lán Gynostemma pentaphyllum · jiaogulan, southern ginseng A weedy vine from the southern mountains that somehow taught itself ginseng's chemistry — the villages called it the immortality herb, and the chemists, for once, understood why.

薏苡仁yì yǐ rén Coix lacryma-jobi · Job's tears, coix seed A grain doing a herb's job, or a herb doing a grain's — the pearl barley of Chinese kitchens, prescribed by the bowl rather than the gram, which tells you most of its safety profile.

天麻tiān má Gastrodia elata · gastrodia tuber An orchid with no leaves that lives on a fungus and calms the wind in a spinning head — the strangest biography in my cabinet belongs to its steadiest herb.

杜仲dù zhòng Eucommia ulmoides · eucommia bark Snap the bark and it refuses to let go — silver elastic threads stretch across the break. The tradition looked at that and prescribed it for backs. You can see the logic from here.

麦冬mài mén dōng Ophiopogon japonicus · ophiopogon tuber The little spindle roots of a border-garden grass, plump with stored water — my drawer for throats that lecture, coughs that tickle at midnight, and hearts too dry to settle.

红花hóng huā Carthamus tinctorius · safflower The dyer's flower that colors silk and moves blood — feather-light threads of flame the tradition scatters wherever circulation has stalled. Light in the hand, and not to be handled lightly.

钩藤gōu téng Uncaria rhynchophylla · uncaria hook, cat's claw vine A vine that climbs by little claws, cut into hook-bearing segments — the tradition uses the hooks to catch wind rising in the body: tremor, dizziness, the pounding irritable head.