Cylindrical or subsquare, 2~3 cm long, 2~5 mm in diameter. Externally reddish-brown to purplish-red, with fine longitudinal striations and glabrous; or yellowish-green to greyish-brown, sometimes with white dotted lenticels, covered with yellowish-brown pubescences. Most nodes bearing with two opposite downward curved hooks (sterile peduncles), someones with a hook at one side and a raised scar at another side; hooks slightly flattened or rounded, apex acute, base relatively broad; dotted scars of falling petiole and ring-shaped scars of stipule visible on the branch connected with the hook base. Texture hard and tenacious, fracture yellowish-brown, bark fibrous, pith yellowish-white or hollowed. Odourless; taste, weak.

Headache, dizziness, convulsion, eclampsia, hypertension.

1. Calming the wind to relieve convulsion

In treating epilepsy and convulsion due to formation of wind caused by liver-heat, tetanus, etc., the drug is often used in combination with Rhizoma Gastrodiae, Flos Chrysanthemi, Periostracum Cicadae, Cornu Saigae Tataricae, etc.

2. Calming the liver and clearing away heat

In treating headache due to liver-heat, headache due to wind-heat, dizziness, etc., the drug is often used in combination with Folium Mori, Flos Chrysanthemi, Herba Menthae, etc. Besides, the drug also has satisfactory effect of lowering blood pressure, and can be used effectively to treat hypertension due to hyperactivity of the liver-hea