Hey, don't mistake privet for holly

How much do you know about Chinese medicine? Among the common plants in our daily life, there are many plants that can be used for medicinal purposes. The fruit of the Ligustrum lucidum plant of the Oleaceae family is called Ligustrum lucidum fruit and is a medicinal material. It has the medicinal effects of nourishing the yin of the liver and kidneys, and improving eyesight. But what does Ligustrum lucidum look like? How should we understand and identify it? Now let’s learn about the plant morphology and medicinal properties of Ligustrum lucidum, as well as the identification of this medicinal material.

Ligustrum lucidum is the fruit of Ligustrum lucidum, a plant of the genus Ligustrum in the family Oleaceae. Ligustrum lucidum is also known as Ligustrum lucidum fruit, holly fruit, ash tree fruit, and mouse fruit. The product is oval, elliptical or kidney-shaped, 6 to 8.5 mm long and 3.5 to 5.5 mm in diameter. The surface is black-purple or gray-black, wrinkled and uneven, with fruit stalk scars at the base or with persistent calyx and short stalks. Light body. The exocarp is thin, the mesocarp is relatively soft and easy to peel off, the endocarp is woody, yellow-brown, with longitudinal ridges, and after breaking open, there is usually one seed, which is kidney-shaped, purple-black, and oily. Odorless, sweet and slightly bitter. Ligustrum lucidum, also known as female zhen, wax tree, zhenmu or general tree, is native to the Yangtze River basin and southern China, Henan, Shaanxi, Gansu and other places. It has also been introduced to not too cold places in the north, and is also distributed in southern Korea and India.

Plant morphology

It is generally about 6 meters high. The leaves are leathery and brittle, ovate, broadly ovate, elliptical or ovate-lanceolate, 6-12 cm long, and glabrous. The panicle is 12-20 cm long. The drupe is rectangular, purple-blue, and about 1 cm long. Evergreen tree with oval crown. The bark is gray-green, smooth and does not crack. The branches are spreading, smooth and hairless. Simple leaves are opposite, ovate or ovate-lanceolate, gradually pointed at the apex, cuneate or nearly rounded at the base, entire, dark green, shiny, glabrous on the surface, light green, leathery on the back. It blooms in June and July, with white flowers and terminal panicles. The berry-like drupe is nearly kidney-shaped, ripens in October-November, and is dark blue when ripe.

Medicinal material properties

This product is the dried mature fruit of Ligustrum lucidum Ait., a plant of the Oleaceae family. The fruits are harvested in winter when they are ripe, the branches and leaves are removed, and they are lightly steamed or slightly blanched in boiling water, and then dried; or they can be dried directly.

It is oval, elliptical or kidney-shaped, 6 to 8.5 mm long and 3.5 to 5.5 mm in diameter. The surface is black-purple or gray-black, wrinkled and uneven, with fruit stalk scars at the base or with persistent calyx and short stalks. Light body. The exocarp is thin, the mesocarp is relatively soft and easy to peel off, the endocarp is woody, yellow-brown, with longitudinal ridges, and after breaking open, there is usually one seed, which is kidney-shaped, purple-black, and oily. Odorless, sweet and slightly bitter.

Medicinal properties

Efficacy: Nourishes liver and kidney yin, darkens beard and improves eyesight.

Dosage: decoction, 10~15g.

Identification

Take 0.5 g of the powder, add 20 ml of methanol, heat and reflux for 30 minutes, filter, evaporate the filtrate to dryness, add 1 ml of anhydrous ethanol-chloroform (3:2) mixture to the residue to dissolve it, and use it as the test solution. Take another oleanolic acid reference substance and add ethanol to make a solution containing 1 mg per 1 ml as the reference substance solution. According to the thin layer chromatography method (Appendix Ⅵ B), 3-5 μl of the test solution and 5 μl of the reference solution were respectively spotted on the same silica gel G thin layer plate, and cyclohexane-acetone-ethyl acetate (5:2:1) was used as the developing solvent. The plate was developed, taken out, dried, sprayed with 10% ethanolic sulfuric acid solution, and heated at 110°C until the spots were clearly colored. In the test sample chromatogram, a spot of the same color appears at the corresponding position in the reference sample chromatogram.