The medicinal part of Xia Gu Cao is its dried fruit spikes, not its rhizomes or flowers, so there is no such thing as “whether it is better to take the rhizomes or the flowers of Xia Gu Cao”. This product has the effect of clearing the liver and diarrhea, and should be used in accordance with medical advice.
Xia Gu Cao is a dried fruit spike, which is rod-shaped, light brown or brownish-red. It is harvested in summer when the spikes are brownish-red in color.
Xiaku Cao has a pungent, bitter flavor and is cold in nature. It belongs to the liver meridian and gallbladder meridian. It has the effect of brightening eyes, clearing liver and fire, dispersing knots and subduing swelling.
It is clinically used for eyeball night pain, eye redness and swelling, scrofula (mainly refers to cervical lymph node tuberculosis), gall tumors (equivalent to thyroid tumors), headache and dizziness, breast fetish (painful lumps in the breasts, which are closely related to menstrual cycle and emotional changes, equivalent to breast hyperplasia), carbuncle (the redness, swelling and pain of the breasts and the unsmooth discharge of breast milk, which ultimately results in a suppurative disease), breast distension and pain.
People with weak spleen and stomach should be cautious of taking Xia Gu Cao. Adverse effects and contraindications of the drug are not known. It should be used under the doctor’s diagnosis.