Alternatively known as Horsetail, Horsetail Vegetable, Long Life Vegetable, Horse Amaranth, Sour Amaranth, Sour Taste Vegetable, Lion's Weed, Hog's Mother Vegetable.
Morphological features annual fleshy herb, the whole plant smooth and hairless. Stem cylindrical, lying flat or slanting upward, sunny side often with light maroon or purple. Leaves alternate or opposite, petiole very short, leaf blade plump and fleshy, obovate or spatulate, apex obtuse-rounded, sometimes emarginate, base broadly cuneate, entire, dark green above, dark red below. Bisexual flowers in summer, smaller, yellow, clustered in the leaf axils at the top of the branches; four to five involucral bracts, triangular-ovate; two sepals, opposite, ovate, the base conjoined with the ovary; five petals, obcordate, the apex retuse; androgynophore yellow; pistil one, the ovary semi-inferior, 1-locular, the apical part of the style 4-6-lobed, forming a thread-like stigma. June-October short conical capsule, brown, dehiscent; seeds numerous, black-brown, surface with fine spots. The whole herb is harvested in summer and used fresh or dried in the sun.
Growing environment is distributed in most parts of China. In the field, wasteland and roadside.
Effective cold, pungent and sour, non-toxic. Clearing heat and removing toxins, dispersing blood and eliminating swelling.
Selected first formula: 30 grams of dried amaranth (doubled fresh).
Use: Decoct water and remove the dregs, add a little sugar and feed.
Treatment: infantile diarrhea. Second formula: 150 grams of dried amaranth.
Use: double the fresh product, water decoction. Daily 1 dose, 10 days for a course of treatment, can be served 1 to 3 courses.
Treatment: gonorrhea. Third party: 100 grams of dried amaranth.
Use: water decoction 2 times divided service, 1 dose per day, served for 1 month.
Treatment: Diabetes mellitus (Yin deficiency and dry heat type). Fourth formula: 60 grams of dried amaranth.
Use: double the fresh product, decoct the juice. Half for internal use, half for external use, tattoo washing or wet compresses on the affected area, 1 dose per day.
Treatment: carbuncle, boils, perianal abscess and nail groin infection and other purulent diseases. Fifth formula: 100 grams of fresh amaranth, 30 grams of knotgrass, 25 grams of bitter ginseng.
Use: water decoction divided into 2 times in the morning and evening warm.
Treatment: trichomonas enteritis. Sixth formula: 100 grams of dried amaranth.
Use: Take the above medicine, decoct 2 times, and combine the filtrate. Divided into morning and evening, 1 dose per day, for 1 month as a course of treatment.
Treatment: diabetes is a deficiency of yin and dry heat. Seventh formula: 60 grams of fresh amaranth, 30 grams of plantain.
Use: Decoction with water.
Treatment: acute cystitis. Formula 8: 120 grams of fresh amaranth.
Use: pounded compresses outside the affected area, changed twice a day.
Treatment: band rash. Ninth formula: appropriate amount of amaranth seeds.
Use: dry and powder, 5 grams per use, mixed with onion and black bean porridge to eat.
Treatment: optic nerve atrophy.