Guangdong Money Grass, a traditional Chinese medicine, is the dried whole herb of the legume plant Guangdong Money Grass, which is distributed in provinces such as Fujian, Hunan, Guangxi, and Guangdong. It has the effects of clearing heat, diuresis, and eliminating stones, and is used for urinary system infections, urinary stones, cholelithiasis, and acute jaundice hepatitis. The editor of Traditional Chinese Medicine Network will take you to understand the morphological characteristics and the morphological identification of Money Grass!
[Morphological Characteristics]
Guangdong Money Grass is a shrubby herbaceous plant, 30-90 centimeters tall. The stem is upright, and the branches are cylindrical, densely covered with yellow short hairs. Usually there is 1 leaflet, sometimes 3 leaflets;
The terminal leaflet is round, leathery, with a slightly concave apex and a heart-shaped base, 1.8-3.4 centimeters long and 2.1-3.5 centimeters wide, with no hairs on the upper surface and densely covered with appressed hairs on the lower surface, with the most veins;
When the lateral leaflets exist, they are smaller than the terminal leaflets, round or elliptical, 1-1.5 centimeters long; petiole 1-1.8 centimeters long; stipules small, lanceolate, and striped.
The inflorescence is terminal or axillary, extremely dense, about 2.5 centimeters long; bracts ovate, hairy; pedicels 2-3 millimeters long; flowers small, purple, fragrant; calyx hairy, calyx teeth lanceolate, twice as long as the calyx tube;
Corolla papilionaceous, about 4 millimeters long, standard petal round or elongated, gradually narrowed into a claw at the base, wing petals adnate to the keel petals; stamen 10, diadelphous; ovary linear;
The fruit is linear elliptical and covered with short hairs, with a straight ventral suture and a shallowly undulate dorsal suture, with 4-5 segments, each segment nearly square. Flowering period is from June to September.
[Morphological Identification]
The dried stems of Guangdong Money Grass are cylindrical, up to 60 centimeters long, 2-5 millimeters thick, pale brownish-yellow on the surface, densely covered with yellow hairs, brittle and easy to break, with a pale yellow color on the cross section, and a white medulla in the center.
The leaves are wrinkled and easy to fall off, grayish-green to dark green on the upper surface, hairless, light green on the lower surface, densely covered with white hairs. The stem nodes often have stipules, lanceolate and conical, light brown. Occasionally flowers and fruits can be found in the medicinal materials. The odor is weak and the taste is mild.
