Common Heron’s Bill Herb

Primarily produced in the Chinese provinces of Shandong, Hebei, Sichuan, Yunnan.

Geranium wilfordii Maxim.: Stem is relatively thin, slightly short. Leaves are round, 3 or 5 deep cracks, lobes are relatively wide, and edges are incised. Fruit is spherical, 0.3~0.4cm long. Style is 1~1.5cm long, sometimes with 5 cracks rolled upward forming an umbrella-shape. Erodium stephanianum Willd.: Stem is 30~50cm long, 0.3~0.7cm diameter, numerous branches, enlarged joints. Externally grayish-green or purplish, with longitudinal grooves and sparse soft hairs. Brittle texture, fractured surface is yellowish-white, sometimes with a hollow center. Opposing leaves, with thin and long leaf stems; leaves are wrinkled, brittle and easily broken; intact leaves are bipinnate and cracked, lobes are lanceolate. Fruit is long round, 0.5~1cm long. Persistent style is 2.5~4cm long, similar to a stork’s beak, sometimes cracked into 5 lobes in spiral rolls. faint odor; mild taste. Geranium carolinianum L.: Palmate leaves with 5~7 deep cracks, lobes are strips, with 3~5 deep cracks for each lobe.

Superior medicinal material is green with numerous flowers and fruits.

Acrid, bitter; neutral

Dispels wind-damp, frees channels, stops diarrhea. Apply to rheumatic arthralgia, numbness and tendon spasm, aching pain of bones and muscles, diarrhea and dysentery.

'Long beak’: This refers to the persistent style found on the fruit of lao guan cao medicinal material, which has a shape similar to the long beak of a stork.