Malan is a kind of herb of compositae plant Malan, and it is also the first kind of Malan recorded in Save the Wild Herbal Medicine. It mainly grows in wasteland, undergrowth plants, roadsides, farmland and so on. Because it grows in the field where crops are planted, it is also called roadside chrysanthemum and wild chrysanthemum. In southwest China, people call it loach, loach and loach, mainly because Malan is a little slippery after cooking, much like loach. Malan has rhizomes and aboveground stems. Some rhizomes crawl on the ground or underground, and the stems on the ground have branches. The leaves on the stem wither at the flowering stage, and the leaves are oblanceolate with lobes at the edges. There are tongue-shaped petals, 15 to 20 tongues, the tongue is about 1 cm long, and the white is purplish or lavender. Malantou is a weed of Compositae, which is widely distributed in rural fields, roadsides, ditches and barren slopes. But in the north, many people don't pay much attention to it, so that in the wilderness, it can grow to one or two meters high and produce purple or white flowers, which is very beautiful.
The buds of Malantou have red stems, so they are also called "red stem vegetables". People in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai like to eat Malantou. Writer Zhou Zuoren once mentioned a Zhejiang nursery rhyme in "Wild Vegetables in Hometown": "Shepherd's purse is mala Tang, and my sister marries through the back door". Malantou, as a wild vegetable, is famous for shepherd's purse. Malantou is rich in selenium, zinc, calcium, carotene and vitamins. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Malantou was fresh and tender, so Malantou was also one of the important wild vegetables for people to make "green dumplings". Besides jiaozi, spicy Tang Can can also be fried, cold or made into soup. Malantou mixed with dried incense is a famous dish.
Malantou has many nicknames, such as Malan and Tianbianju. There are many varieties of this plant, and there are also many roadside plants in rural areas of Guangxi. Malantou is hardy and can be found in winter. Even in the cold season, the flowers of compositae are still in full bloom. Rural people say they have never seen Malan, but they really don't believe it. It is distributed in many places, such as roadsides, fields or mountains. Its flowers are like gears, and the petals are very small, because there are many varieties and different colors, some are white and some are purple. The tender leaves of Malantu are used for cooking. In the field of wild vegetables, Malantou is not well-known because there are many varieties and tastes are more or less different. If you don't like a certain variety of mala Tang, you probably won't try it again. I don't think Malantou tastes so bad, but compared with Portulaca oleracea, it tastes relatively low. However, some kinds of Malantou are still delicious, depending on personal taste.