Common Swisscentaury Root

Primarily produced in the Chinese provinces of Liaoning, Hebei, Shanxi.

Conical or flat lumps, often twisted, uneven length, 1~2.5cm diameter. Externally dark brown, grayish-brown or black-brown, rough, with longitudinal grooves and rhomboid net-like cracks. Outer skin is easily to peel off, root head is enlarged, with remnants of stem and scale-like leaf base, apex has grayish-white fuzz. Light, brittle texture, easily broken, fractured surface is uneven, grayish-yellow, with cracks; center has a star-like crack, grayish-black or brownish-black. Distinctive odor, slightly bitter taste.

Superior medicinal material is thick, brownish-black, not easily broken.

Bitter; cold

Clears heat, resolves toxin, eliminates abscess, frees milk, comforts sinew, frees veins. Apply to mammary abscess, abscess on back, scrofula and sore toxin, lack of lactation, damp impediment and spasm, arthritis, dysentery with bloody stool due to heat toxin, hemorrhoids hemorrhage.

'Wearing a bamboo hat’: The root head of lou lu is enlarged with brown scale-like leaf bases covering the white downy apex, similar to a bamboo hat on the head.