Shegan

Alternative names: Scissor grass, black fan, Huangyuan, flat bamboo

English name: BELAMCANDAE RHIZOMA

Main functions: Clearing away heat and detoxifying, eliminating phlegm and soothing the throat.

Shegan is a heat-clearing medicine, which is the dried rhizome of Shegan, a plant of the Iris family.

The Chinese medicinal material Shegan is bitter and cold in nature. Returns to the lung meridian.

Shegan is mainly produced in Hubei, Jiangsu and Henan

Anhui.

The medicinal parts of Shegan:

Shegan is the dried rhizome of Belamcanda chinensis (L.) DC., a plant in the family Iris. Dig it when it has just sprouted in early spring or when its stems and leaves have withered in late autumn, remove the fibrous roots and sediment, and dry it.

Characteristics of the medicinal parts of Shegan:

This product is in the shape of irregular nodules, 3 to 10cm long and 1 to 2cm in diameter. The surface is yellowish brown, tan or dark brown, wrinkled, with dense ring patterns.

There are several disc-shaped depressed stem marks on the upper surface, and occasionally the stem base remains; there are residual fine roots and root marks on the lower surface. It is hard, yellow in cross-section, and granular. The smell is slight, the taste is bitter and slightly pungent.

Shegan is bitter and cold, slows down diarrhea, and can disperse blood, so pregnant women and those with spleen deficiency and loose stools should not take it.