Young oil grass is the whole herb of the plant Lamium album, which belongs to the Urticaceae family. It is also known as Goudun grass, Japanese Lamium album, or Little Jiulong Pan. It has the effects of clearing heat, detoxifying, relieving cough, and stopping bleeding. Now let's learn more about Young oil grass!
Young oil grass can be harvested all year round. Remove impurities, wash and use fresh or dry in the sun. It is a perennial herbaceous plant, 10-20cm tall. The rhizome is short, and the base of the stem branches, erect or ascending, usually slender and weak, slightly transparent, with sparse short recurved hairs pointing upwards.
The leaves are opposite; petioles are about 1cm long; stipules are ovate and oblique; leaf blades are rhomboid-ovate, triangular, or nearly fan-shaped, with approximately equal length and width, about 1-2cm long;
The apex is blunt, the base is wide-wedge-shaped to truncate, and the edges have coarse blunt rounded serrations. Both sides have sparse short soft hairs and a few stinging hairs. The upper surface has small glandular bodies, dot-like or narrow, strip-like.
The flowers are monoecious, purple, and either male and female on the same plant or on different plants; male flowers are borne in the leaf axils at the stem apex, with slender long pedicels longer than the leaves, sparsely branched, with a diameter of about 2.8mm, with 5 petals and 5 stamens in pairs;
Female flowers are borne below the male inflorescence, with short or almost no pedicels, short and dense branches, 4 petals about 1mm long, covered with long white hairs, and 1 pistil enclosed, with the stigma resembling a brush head. The fruit is ovate, with dotted protrusions. The flowering period is in April, and the fruiting period is in May to June.
It grows in the understory of mountain forests and along ditches. It is distributed in Shanxi, Shaanxi, Gansu, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Fujian, Taiwan, Hubei, Guizhou, Yunnan, and other places.
"Zhejiang Tianmu Mountain Medicinal Plant Chronicle": It is used to treat cough with phlegm and blood, accompanied by tidal fever. Take 1-2 liang of the whole herb, add 3-4 qian of Atractylodes macrocephala, decoct with water, and take it before meals in the morning and evening, with the addition of rock sugar or white sugar.
