English name: ARNEBIAE RADIX

Main functions: heat and cooling blood, promoting blood circulation and detoxification, clearing rash and eliminating spots

Lithospermum is a medicine that clears away heat and cools blood. The dried roots of the Boraginaceae plant, Xinjiang Lithospermum or Inner Mongolia Lithospermum.

Chinese medicinal material Lithospermum purpurea is sweet, salty and cold in nature. Guixin, liver meridian.

Lithospermum is mainly produced in Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia.

Medicinal parts of Lithospermum:

Lithospermum is the dried root of Arnebia euchroma (Royle) Johnst. or Arnebia guttata Bunge of Inner Mongolia, a plant of the family Lithospermaceae. Excavate in spring and autumn, remove sediment and dry.

Characteristics and characteristics of the parts of Lithospermum used as medicine:

1. Xinjiang Lithospermum (Soft Lithospermum) is an irregular long cylindrical shape, often twisted, 7 to 20cm long and 1 in diameter ~2.5cm. The surface is purple-red or purple-brown, and the skin is loose and strip-shaped, often with more than 10 overlapping layers and easy to peel off. Different stem residues are visible at the top. The body is light, soft, easy to break, the cross-section is irregular, the wood is small, yellow-white or yellowish, and tastes slightly bitter and astringent.

2. Lithospermum Inner Mongolia is conical or cylindrical, twisted, 6-20cm long and 0.5-4cm in diameter. The root head is slightly thicker, with 1 or more stumps at the top, covered with short bristles. The surface is purple-red or dark purple, and the skin is slightly thin, with constant layers stacked on top of each other and easy to peel off. It is hard and brittle, easy to break, has a neat cross-section, the skin is purple-red, and the wood is small and yellow-white. The smell is peculiar and the taste is astringent.

Lithospermum is cold in nature and slippery, so people with spleen deficiency and loose stools should avoid taking it!