dwarf lilyturf tuber (mai dong)

Plant description:Fusiform, with two ends slightly tapering, 0.3-0.7 cm in diameter. Externally yellowish-white, finely winkled longitudinally. Texture tough, fracture yellowish-white, translucent, stele small. Odor, slightly aromatic; taste, sweetish and bitterish.

Functions:Radix Ophiopogonis is providing with nourishing the yin and moisten the lungs, strengthen the stomach and promote the production of body fluids, clearing heat in the heart and relieve irritability and sedative and boost sleeping,promotion island of langerhans cell function restores, increasing liver glycogen, reduces the function of blood sugar. Because it has function the heart, also beneficial to diabetes merge heart disease.

Pharmacology:To nourish yin and promote the production of body fluid, to moisten the lung, and to ease the mind. Dry cough, phthisical cough; thirst due to impairment of body fluid; fidgetness and insomnia; diabetes caused by internal heat; constipation; diphtheria. clearing away heat from the lung, nourishing the stomach.In treating cough from consumptive disease, dry mouth and throat, and dry cough with thick sputum due to exhaustion of Yin in the lung and stomach, the drug is often used in combination with Rhizoma Pinelliae, Radix Condonopsis Pilosulae, etc., or equal amount of the drug and Radix Asparagi are made into soft extract with honey and one or two spoonful of the extract is taken before meals, three times a day. In treating thirst due to exhaustion of body fluid, the drug is often used in combination with Radix Adenophorae Strictae, Radix Rehmanniae, etc.In treating vexation and insomnia due to invasion of heart from febrile disease into the heart, the drug is often used in combination with Cornu Rhinoceri, Radix Rehmanniae, Radix Salviae Miltiorrhizae, etc.In treating constipation due to dryness of the intestine as a result of deficiency of body fluid, the drug is often used in combination with Radix Rehmanniae and Radix Scrophulariae.

The herb is contraindicated for those with diarrhea due to cold of deficiency type, or with cough caused by exopathogens.