(Wang Keizhu, Tian Zhuanwei)

Bletilla [Bletilla striata (Thunb.) Reichb.f.] is also known as White Roots, Bletilla seeds, Ground Screws, and Thousand-Year Brown. It is a perennial herb of Orchidaceae. It is an important and commonly used traditional Chinese medicine, widely distributed in the Yangtze River Basin provinces in China, mainly produced in Guizhou, Sichuan, Hunan, Hubei, Anhui, Henan, Zhejiang, Shaanxi and other places.

The tuber (pseudobulb) is used as medicine. Pseudobulbs contain starch, mucilage, glucose, mannan and so on. According to recent pharmacological research, it is very effective in stopping bleeding and blood cell coagulation.

Bletilla can also be used as emulsifier, suspending agent. Bletilla gum powder can replace the yarrow gum powder and gum Arabic powder, and Bletilla gum sticky part made Bletilla substitute plasma. The starch contained in its pseudobulbs is sticky and can be used as industrial paste, silk and cotton yarn or paint, but also brewing. Taste bitter, astringent, slightly cold. It has the functions of astringency, hemostasis, subduing swelling and muscle growth. Used for tuberculosis, coughing up blood, bronchitis dilatation hemoptysis, gastric ulcer bleeding, blood in urine, blood in stool, traumatic bleeding and chapped skin.

I. Morphological Characteristics

The plant is 30-60cm high, and the underground pseudostem is flat-orbicular or irregularly rhombic, fleshy, yellowish-white, and has a majority of fibrous roots, which are often concurrently, with concentric nodal lines on them. Leaves 3-6, lanceolate or broadly lanceolate, 15-40cm long, 2.5-5cm wide, apex acuminate, base extended into a sheath and clasping. Racemes with 3-10 flowers, sparsely spaced; bracts oblong-lanceolate, corolla irregular, light reddish purple, labellum larger, obovate-oblong, 3-lobed, center lobe rugose. Androgynophore united into a staminal column, stigma bearing 1 stamen apically, pollinia 4 pairs; ovary inferior, terete, twisted. Capsule fusiform, hexagonal, yellowish at maturity, sutured. Seeds tiny, escaping from slits (Figs. 14-66).

Figure 14-66 Morphological diagram of Bletilla hyacinthina

1. Plant holotype 2. ligule 3. gynostegium 4. androgynous bed and its abaxial surface 5. pollinia 6. capsule

Biological characteristics of Bletilla hyacinthina is wildly found in grassy slopes of mountain slopes at an altitude of 500-1500m, in ravines and streams, and likes to be distributed in humus soil or sandy loam. Humus or sandy loam, and cooler, wet and warm environment. In Sichuan, the average annual temperature of about 17 ℃, rainfall of 1100-1200mm, relative humidity of 75-81%, the absolute maximum temperature of 38 ℃, the absolute minimum temperature of -6 ℃, can grow normally. Flowering period is generally in early April to late May, late October fruit ripe.

The pseudobulbs of Bletilla hyacinthica, each year, 1-2 manifolds are connected to produce new stems, in a certain number of years, the number and weight of pseudobulbs are doubled or close to doubled growth, see Table 14-60.

Table 14-60 Bletilla hyacinthica pseudobulbes growth III, Cultivation technology

(A) species

Bletilla is mostly in the wild, and most of the medicinal plants are [Bletilla striata (Thunb.) Reichb.f], which has been artificially cultivated but has not yet been selected and bred to produce good varieties. In addition, there are several species of Bletilla striata (B. yunnanesis Schltr.), Bletilla ochracea (B. ochracea Schltr.), Bletilla formosana (Hayata) Schltr. and so on. The latter three species are rarely cultivated because of small pseudobulbs and low yields.

(2) Selection and preparation of land

Mature land and raw wasteland can be cultivated. Must choose a well-drained and shady environment, to fertile, loose sandy soil, sandy loam, humus cultivation is appropriate. Poorly drained, sticky soil is prone to root disease, and in the harvest of the digging more labor-intensive desludging, so it is not suitable for selection.

Turn the ground before planting, about 30cm deep, rake fine leveling, built into 130cm wide, ditch depth of 15-20cm raised beds, in order to facilitate drainage.

(C) propagation methods

With asexual reproduction. Sichuan in September-October when harvesting the selection of the year with shoots of pseudobulbs and their old bulbs adjacent to the first year of succession cut down, according to the rows of plants 33cm apart from the hole, 10-13cm deep, each hole planted 3, was a triangle flat on the hole, the new shoots outward, about 15,000 per acre with the seed stems, planted after the drenching of pig manure water, and covered with a mixture of After planting, drizzle pig manure water, and cover with grass ash mixed with pig manure water or rotted compost, a handful of each hole, about 1200-1500kg per mu, and then mulch with the bed flush. Hubei in early spring in February or fall in August in conjunction with the harvest planting. In the north at the end of April or early May will be stored in the previous year with buds seed stem cut down, according to the rows and plants spacing 33 × 17cm holes, each hole planted 1, mulch 3-4cm, and a little suppression, and then drenched with water.

Bletilla adopts asexual reproduction, the coefficient of increase in yield is limited, it is reported that, if you need a large number of cultivation, you can use aseptic sprouting and tissue culture to combine the method of reproduction, which can obtain a large number of seedlings, providing a new way for mass production.

(D) field management

1. Plowing and weeding in summer and fall, often due to weed growth affecting the growth of hyacinth, should be timely weeding. In Sichuan, generally 4 times a year, the first March-April after the seedling flush, the second May-June growth period, the third August-September, the fourth in the winter after the inversion of seedlings. When weeding, pay attention to hoeing loose topsoil, but do not hurt the stem buds, winter weeding must be shoveled up to cover the bed, to protect the stem buds, from frost and snow damage.

2. Fertilizer

Three times a year, combined with weed control in the mid-tillage. The first time per mu with ammonium sulfate 4-5kg in water, such as the exchange of light manure is better; the second time per mu with calcium superphosphate 30kg, mixed with compost compost spread on the beds, combined with hoeing and loosening of the soil mixed into the soil; the third time to apply mixed with human and animal manure soil fertilizer 2500-3000kg, in the winter after the fall of the seedlings, mowed to the The third application of 2500-3000kg of soil fertilizer mixed with human and animal manure and water, mowed off after the fall of seedlings in winter, withered branches and leaves scattered on the beds, combined with the winter hoeing into the soil.

Four, harvesting and processing

(a) Harvesting

Bletilla hyacinthus can be harvested in 3-4 years after general cultivation, such as the growth of too long a period of time, dense plants in the field, affecting the growth of the pseudo-bulb of too long a period of time, the quality of the product is reduced by the processing of the product, not only the appearance of the skinny and the color and lustre is not good. Harvesting period for the September-October, when the ground stem and leaves nearly withered or completely withered, if delayed to the following year after the sprouting of new shoots harvesting, the product yield decline. Harvesting first cut off the ground part, with a hoe from the pseudobulb under the flat shovel, cut off part of the fibrous roots, the pseudobulb with soil at the same time digging up.

(2) keep the seed

Remove the soil, from the pseudobulb connection cut into a single, the pseudobulb of the year selected for seed, timely planting; can also be used to dry sand piled up and hidden in a cool, dry place to avoid frost damage. To be planted in the following year after the break of frost.

(C) processing

Pseudobulbs will be soaked in water, about 1 hour or so, wash the soil, remove the roots, into the pot boiling for about 6-10 minutes, do not see the white heart can be fished out, drying off the water and then spread the sun or baking kang to the surface of the dry and hard, not bonded. Smoke with sulfur overnight and continue to expose to the sun or bed to dry, with bamboo baskets or groove cage hit the remnants of the beard, so that the surface is polished yellowish-white, and then sieve the impurities into.

To be free of roots, coarse skin, mud, sand, impurities and no insects, mold for qualified products, to a large full, yellowish color and solid is good.