Wiseman’s Chinese Medical Database

xiān dì huáng / 鲜地黄 / 鮮地黃 / fresh rehmannia [root];

Latin pharmacognostic name: Rehmanniae Radix Recens

Alternate English names: fresh Chinese foxglove [root]

Alternate Chinese names: 鲜生地 xiān shēng dì; 鲜生地黄 xiān shēng dì huáng

Origin: Plant

Use: medicinal

Category: Heat-clearing agents / Heat-clearing blood-cooling agents

Properties: Sweet and bitter; cold; nontoxic*.

Channel entry: heart, liver, and kidney channels.

Indications:

Clears heat, cools the blood, and engenders liquid.

damage to yīn in warm disease with great heat effusion with vexation thirst, crimson tongue, and clouded spirit; vomiting of blood (blood ejection) and nosebleed (nǜ xuè); vacuity taxation steaming bone; coughing of blood; dispersion-thirst (xiāo kě); constipation. Same as the dried form but is colder in nature but less supplementing.

Dosage & Method:

Oral: 15–60g. Use the juice, 鲜生地汁, for maximum strength of action.

Notes:

The fresh root, which is normally unavailable in the West, clears heat and cools the blood as well as draining fire and eliminating vexation. It is mostly used for blood heat with yīn vacuity and depleiton of liquid. It does not have the same powerful yīn-nourishing action of 干地黄 or the blood-nourishing yīn-nourishing action of 熟地黄.

Product Area:

Hénán, Zhèjiāng, Jiāngsū, Héběi, Gānsū, Húnán, Húběi, Sìchuān, and Shǎnxī (Shaanxi).

See also:

shēng dì huáng (生地黄 Rehmanniae Radix Exsiccata seu Recens, dried/fresh rehmannia [root];)