Medicinal Value of Redwood Trees

The redwood plant is relatively rare in our lives. It has high medicinal value and can play an anti-cancer and cancer prevention role. Redwood is also a very scarce tree, and we need to work together to take protective measures. Redwood trees can treat abdominal distension caused by qi stagnation and dampness and heat in the body. They can also regulate meditation and treat dysentery. You can learn about the medicinal value of redwood trees.

The value of the redwood tree lies mainly in its bark. A component extracted from the redwood bark is an effective anti-cancer substance. In addition, redwood is also a relatively ancient and rare tree species, which can only be found in a few remote mountains in China. Because its rare medicinal value has been greatly damaged, the government is also stepping up its efforts to protect it.

Redwood is also known as coast redwood, evergreen redwood, California redwood, and is commonly known as redwood.

For a long time, this treasure was kept unknown to the world. In 1794, a Scotsman named Seth collected specimens of redwood cones, branches, leaves and seeds. It was not until 1847 that the Austrian botanist Andernich, after in-depth research, discovered that Lambert's identification was wrong. So he used the name of a North American Indian chief who founded the Kiloki writing system as the genus name of redwood to show eternal commemoration. Since then, the results of continuous in-depth investigations and studies have shown that the North American redwood is only distributed in a narrow strip of land 800 kilometers long from north to south and below 1,000 meters above sea level in California and Oregon, USA. It is a "living fossil" in the plant kingdom.

The functions and indications of Chinese medicine redwood bark: stop diarrhea; promote qi circulation. It is used to treat dysentery, rectal prolapse, and abdominal distension due to qi stagnation. Dysentery is the name of a disease in Traditional Chinese Medicine. The clinical features are dysentery with red, white, pus and blood, abdominal pain, and tenesmus. The main causes of the disease are external evils, epidemic toxins, and internal injuries caused by unclean diet. The disease is located in the intestines and is closely related to the spleen and stomach.

The mechanism of dysentery is that damp heat, epidemic toxins, and cold dampness accumulate in the intestines, causing stagnation of qi and blood, damage to the lipid membrane and blood vessels, which turn into pus and blood, and dysfunction of large intestine conduction, resulting in dysentery. Sudden dysentery is mostly a sign of excess, while chronic dysentery is mostly a sign of deficiency. In the treatment of dysentery, for initial dysentery, it is appropriate to use laxatives; for chronic dysentery, it is appropriate to use astringents; for hot dysentery, it is appropriate to use clearing drugs; for cold dysentery, it is appropriate to use warming drugs; for patients with mixed cold, heat, deficiency and excess, it is appropriate to use both laxatives and astringents, and warming and clearing drugs at the same time. For infectious bacillary dysentery and amoebic dysentery, the emphasis should be on prevention and control of infection.

The bark of the redwood is gray to gray-brown, with open branches; the twigs are drooping, orange-brown to purple-brown, and hairless. The leaves are densely clustered on short branches; linear, flat, 1.5--3 cm long, pointed at the tip, gray-green, with ridges on both sides, and 1--2 stomatal bands on the sides of the ridges. The flowers are monoecious, and the inflorescences grow at the tops of the twigs; the male inflorescences are rectangular, sessile, yellow, and have many short-stalked anthers arranged in a spiral.