The efficacy and function of long-leaved fern

Long-leaf fern is a traditional Chinese medicine. It has high medicinal value and has a good health-care effect on some diseases. In our lives, many medicines use long-leaf fern as the main raw material, but we still need to pay attention to many taboos when taking long-leaf fern.

【English name】 Longleaf Bolbitis

[Other names] Trident Sword, Single Blade Stoneweed, Triangle Maple, Three-Step Jump, Duck Tail

[Source] Medicinal material source: the whole herb of Pteris longifolia of the Pteridaceae family.

【Original morphology】Plant height 35-85cm. The rhizome is long and horizontal, densely covered with brown, ovate-lanceolate scales, and arranged in a shield shape. Leaves are subspermous and dimorphic; petioles of nutrient leaves are 10-35cm long, straw-colored, sparsely scaled at base, and glabrous upwards; leaf blades are thinly leathery and of various forms, or simple lanceolate, ternate or monopinnate; pinnae are 1-3 pairs, terminal pinnae are particularly large, lanceolate, 30-40cm long, 5-8cm wide, with long tails at the apex, able to touch the ground and take root, producing new plants; lateral pinnae are 1-5 pairs, oblong or oblong-lanceolate, 6-15cm long, 2-4cm wide, gradually pointed, base cuneate or rounded cuneate, entire or shallowly wavy; venation reticulate, without internal veinlets; spore leaves are of the same type as nutrient leaves but smaller, with petioles 25-40cm long; leaf blades are smaller; venation reticulate, with meshes quadrangular or hexagonal, arranged in 2 rows between lateral veins. When young, the sori are attached along the reticulate veins, and when mature, they are all over the back of the leaves; there is no sori cover.

[Habitat distribution] Ecological environment: Growing under forests or on rocks beside stream valleys at an altitude of 200-1400m.

[Properties] Identification of properties: The rhizome is flat and long, 6-15cm long and 0.5-1cm in diameter; the surface has densely grown small brown scales, with raised petiole marks on both sides and the top, and residual short fibrous roots on the bottom; the texture is brittle, and there are many small veins on the cross section. The leaves are often wrinkled and dimorphic; the petiole of the nutrient leaf is 10-35cm long, with a light brown surface, the leaf blade is 30-40cm long, with a brown surface, and various shapes, simple, ternate or pinnate, with a long tail at the tip, some with visible adventitious roots, and a network of leaf veins; the petiole of the spore leaf is 25-38cm long, and the leaf blade is the same shape as the nutrient leaf but narrower. The sori are spread all over the back of the leaves. Slight odor, light taste.

【Nature and flavor】 Light; Cool

【Meridian】 Lung; Liver; Kidney; Large Intestine

【Functions and indications】 Clears heat and relieves cough; cools blood and stops bleeding. Mainly used for lung heat cough; hemoptysis; dysentery; burns and scalds; poisonous snake bites

[Usage and Dosage] For oral use: decocted in water, 9-15g.

[Discussions by various scholars] "Xinhua Compendium of Materia Medica": light taste, cool nature. It has the functions of clearing away heat and detoxifying, relieving cough and bleeding, and astringing. Used for cough, vomiting blood, dysentery, burns, bruises, and snake bites.

【Excerpt】 Chinese Materia Medica

The above is an introduction to the long-leaf fern. Through this introduction we can understand that the long-leaf fern has high medicinal value and can effectively relieve many diseases, but remember not to take it indiscriminately.