The traditional Chinese medicine Wugongcao, also known as Baizucao, refers to the whole herb or rhizome of the plant Wugongcao in the family Polypodiaceae. Wugongcao is mainly used to treat abdominal pain, dysentery, scabies, scorpion bites, and other unknown swellings and toxins.
Picture of Wugongcao
【Benefits and Functions of Wugongcao】
Wugongcao's benefits and functions:
Taste: mild, bitter, cool
Effects: dispels wind and dampness, relaxes tendons and activates collaterals, detoxifies and kills insects. It is mainly used for rheumatism, bone and joint pain, back pain, limb numbness and stiffness, hemiplegia, bruises, colds, dysentery, breast abscess, sores, scabies, roundworm infection, and snake bites.
【Distribution of Wugongcao】
Wugongcao is widely distributed in tropical and subtropical regions of China, with the southern slope of the Qinling Mountains as its northern boundary in China.
It is found from northern Shaanxi (south of the Qinling Mountains), southeastern Gansu (Kang County), and southwestern Henan (Lushi, Xixia, Neixiang, and Zhenping) to Zhejiang, Fujian, Jiangxi, Anhui, Hubei, Hunan, Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan, and Tibet, and south to Guangxi, Guangdong, and Taiwan. It is also widely distributed in other tropical and subtropical regions of the Old World.
The type specimen was collected from Guangdong.
【Main Value of Wugongcao】
China has abundant mineral resources of non-ferrous metals, with arsenic reserves accounting for 70% of the world's total. Mining and smelting activities can cause arsenic contamination.
Experimental studies have found that as Wugongcao grows taller, the arsenic concentration in its leaves also increases.
The second generation of propagated plants and the second harvest after cutting still retain strong arsenic accumulation characteristics, confirming that the arsenic accumulation function is genetically inherited.
