? Medicinal parts and collection of botanicals

The medicinal parts of plant medicine mainly include roots, stems, leaves, flowers, fruits, seeds or the whole herb. Some of the roots and stems are used in medicine by their skin. As the name suggests, the roots and rhizomes are used in medicine, such as Panax quinquefolium (the root of woad or horse blue), Pueraria lobata, and Cortex alba, but rhubarb, Cangzhu, Platycodon grandiflorus, and Semen xia, etc., are also used in medicine by their roots; the barks or root barks are used in medicine, such as eucommia bark, Houpu, Cyperus, peony bark, dicentrarchus bark, neem root bark, and Acacia bark, etc.; leaves are used in medicine, such as dahlia leaf, moxa leaf, loquat leaf, and mulberry leaf; and flowers are used in medicine, such as chrysanthemum, acacia, and spinach flower, The flowers are used as medicine, such as chrysanthemum, acacia flower, cyclamen, honeysuckle, etc.; the fruits are used as medicine, such as Citrus aurantium, green peppermint, umeboshi; and the seeds are used as medicine, such as petunia seeds, fennel.

The collection of Chinese medicine has a certain seasonality, as the saying goes: the season is medicine, out of season is grass. Because of different medicinal plants, roots, stems, leaves, flowers, fruits, seeds or whole grass have a certain growth and maturity period, which the content of the active ingredients of the high and low, will be different with its different parts of the medicine and different parts of the plant's different growth period, so the time of collecting medicine should be with the varieties of traditional Chinese medicine and the parts of the medicine and the different. Ancient people have a lot of experience in this regard, Tao Hongjing "Herbal Classic Annotated" said: Where the collection of medicines when the month ...... of its roots to February, August pickers, said that the beginning of the spring fluid began to bud, did not punch the branches and leaves, the power of Chunzhu thick so; to the fall branches and leaves dry up, fluid flow under ....... Chen Jiamu said: the real has been ripe, pure flavor; leaf picking new, double the force. ("Materia Medica Mengjian") The general principles of the collection of traditional Chinese medicine are as follows:

Roots and rhizomes: Mostly collected in late fall and early spring. Too early the pulp is insufficient, too late it is not easy to find, and it is not easy to dig, such as Salvia divinorum, salvia divinorum, tiannanxing, etc.. Early spring in the opening of the freeze to just sprouting when the digging is better, too late, the nutrient consumption, affecting the quality.

Bark: Mostly in the spring and summer between the peeling, such as bone bark, white fresh bark. Root bark to spring and fall peeling is good, when it is easy to peel off, and the sap is sufficient.

Leaves: Picked when the leaves are lush and green in color, such as lotus leaves, big green leaves, but mulberry leaves are mostly collected in autumn and winter after frost.

Flowers: Collected when the flowers are about to open, when the odor is strong, such as honeysuckle, winter flowers. Some are picked at the time of blooming, such as flowers, chrysanthemums and so on. Early picking flowers are not full, the smell is not enough; too late, the petals fall, the smell disappears.

Whole herbs: Mostly collected when the branches and leaves are flourishing and the flowers are first blooming. Such as motherwort, goosegrass, groundnut grass, etc.. There are also harvested before the flowers bloom, such as mint, artemisia, etc.. Individuals, such as the chenqian, take young seedlings.

Modern research has confirmed that the mint harvested at the peak of flowering, the highest volatile oil content, while the traditional are cut before the flowering, it can be seen that the collection time of traditional Chinese medicine and its active ingredient content and its pharmacological effects of the relationship between the need for in-depth study.

Some of the different parts of the same plant have the same efficacy, such as the whole herb into the Chinese medicine; some of the efficacy of similar or similar, such as the cyclamen and cyclamen peduncle, are capable of regulating qi and expectorant; there are also different or diametrically opposed to the efficacy of ephedra, such as ephedra and ephedra root. Ephedra functions in sweating and relieving symptoms, promoting lung asthma, diuresis and swelling, and is used for external wind-cold symptoms, wind-cold external beams, cough and asthma with lung gas congestion, and edema with symptoms, because of the strong sweating power of ephedra, the dosage should not be too large, and it is not suitable for those who suffer from superficial deficiency sweating and yin deficiency sweating, or else it will mistakenly injure the body's vital energy because of too much sweating. The root of ephedra can astringent stop sweating, mainly used for self-sweating, night sweating, there is a surface evil should not use ephedra root.

The two effects are opposite, and should not be misused. The motherwort and the azalea, motherwort is commonly used in gynecology, good blood, water, swelling, women often take motherwort cream after delivery, in addition to bad luck, so that the size of the uterus, the function of the return to normal. The fruit of the motherwort, also known as small hu ma, triangular hu ma, activate blood circulation and eliminate blood stasis, regulate menstruation is similar to motherwort, in addition, it is mainly used for head and eye diseases, such as liver fever headache, eye redness, swelling and pain, eye darkness and cataracts. The skin of the large abdomen and betel nut, the skin of the large abdomen is the fruit of betel nut, similar to betel nut, can promote water retention and eliminate swelling, treatment of oedema, but betel nut is good at killing worms and eliminating stagnation, often used in the treatment of intestinal parasites, while the large abdomen has no insecticidal effect, can regulate qi and broaden the middle, used for dampness obstruction of stagnation of qi, the epigastric and abdominal distension and fullness of the person. Another example is he shouwu and nightshade, he shouwu function to tonify essence and blood, interception of malaria, detoxification, lubrication and laxative, treatment of deficiency of the liver and kidney and whitening, malaria, boils and lack of essence and blood and intestinal dryness and constipation. Nightshade vine is the vine of Polygonum multiflorum, also known as Shouwu vine, which functions to nourish the heart and tranquilize the mind, dispel wind and clear the channels, treating insomnia, excessive sweating, blood deficiency, and pain in the limbs, which are not the same as the two in terms of their functions. Therefore, the use of botanicals often have to distinguish between the parts.