Truestar Anise

Primarily produced in Chinese provinces of Guangxi, Yunnan.

Aggregate fruit, composed by 8 (rarely 5~13) follicles, each schizocarp is even sized, radial pattern in the middle axis; follicle is 1~2cm long, 0.5~1cm high; externally brown or reddish-brown, with irregular wrinkles; apex is blunt or blunt-pointy; fruit skin are thick; cracks on the top form a canoe-like shape; inner surface is pale brown with luster. Every follicle has one seed, flat oval shaped, reddish-brown or grayish-brown with luster. Fruit stem is 3~4cm long, curved, often fallen off. Aromatic odor; taste is acrid and sweet.

Superior medicinal material is yellow, large, full and oily.

Acrid; warm.

Disperses cold, rectifies qi, stops pain. Apply to hernia and abdominal cold pain, cold pain of knees and waist, gastrofrigid vomiting, pain of gastric cavity and abdomen, cold and moisture beriberi.

‘Follicle’: This refers to a dry many-seeded fruit derived either from a single carple or a monocarpous gynoecium. When mature, it splits along only one seam (ventral or dorsal suture).