Subcylindrical or conical, slightly tortuous, 6-20 cm long, 0.5-2 cm in diameter. Externally yellowish-brown or brown, irregularly and longitudinally wrinkled or furrowed, bark easily exfoliated, the exposed wood yellow, some exhibiting reticulate fissures and cracks, usually with decayed depressed holes near root stock. Root stock slightly swollen, white-tomentose, some showing sheathlike pedicel bases. Texture hard and, fracture yellowish-white or pale yellowish-brown in bark and pale yellow in wood. Odour, slight; taste, slightly bitter and astringent.

Amoebic dysentery; pudendal itching with excessive leucorrhea.

Reducing intense heat to remove heat toxics, eliminating heat in the blood to relieve dysentery

It can often be used treat dysentery with bloody stools and abdominal pain due to virulent heat; to treat dysentery with tenesmus it is often with Rhizoma Coptidis, Cortex Fraxini, etc.; to treat dysentery with deficiency of blood or this same disease after labor, with Colla Corii Asini, Radix Glycyrrhizae.

It has got good effects in treating bacillary or amebic dysentery, and it can also be used to treat vaginal trichomoniasis in combination with Radix Sophorae Flavescentis, Fructus Cnidii as fumigant and wash, and the result is quite good.