Kusnezoff Monkshood Mother Root

Primarily produced in the Chinese provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, Hebei.

Conical and slightly curved, shaped like raven’s head, 2~7cm long, 1~3cm diameter; apex has remnants of stems or stem scars about 1cm long. Externally dark brown or grayish-brown, wrinkled skin, sometimes with raised supporting roots. Hard and difficult to break, fractured surface is white or grayish-white, either polygonal or semi-circular cambium rings. Lacking odor; taste acrid and spicy, numbing to the tongue.

Superior medicinal material is large, fat an strong, hard texture, powdery, with few stem remnants and rootlets.

Acrid, bitter; hot; very toxic.

Dispels wind, eliminates dampness, warms the channels, relieves pain. Apply to wind cold and moisture impediment, pain joints, chest and abdominal cold pain, cold abdominal colic and pain, stops pain.

Zhi cao wu: Clean cao wu, bath in cold water, change the water 2~3 times a day, till slightly spicy and numbing when taste, boil with glycyrrhiza and black beans, till cao wu cooked completely. No white core, remove the glycyrhiza and black beans, sun-dry to 60% dry, covered moistening and slice (every 100 jin of cao wu, with 5 jin of glycyrrhiza and 10 jin of black beans).

'Nail horn': This generally refers to bulbous growths of lateral roots that extend out from the edges of fu zi, chuan fu zi, and cao wu.