Conical, twisted, 8~25 cm long, 1~3 cm in diameter. Externally brownish-yellow or dark yellow, bearing sparse warty traces of rootlets, the upper part rough, with twisted longitudinal wrinkles or irregular reticula, the lower part with longitudinal striations and fine wrinkles. Texture hard and fragile, easily broken, fracture yellow, reddish-brown in the centre; the central part of an old root dark brown or brownish-black, withered or hollowed. Odour, slight, taste, bitter.

Discomfort in the chest, nausea and vomiting in eidemic febrile diseases caused by damp-heat or summer-heat; feeling of stuffiness in the abdomen, acute dysentery or jaundice caused by damp-heat; cough due to heat in the lung; high fever with dire thirst; spitting of blood and epistaxis due to heat in blood; carbuncles and sores; threatened abortion.

1.Eliminating heat and resolving dampness:

For the treatment of diarrhea or dysentery due to damp-heat accompanied with tenesmus, it is often combined with Radix Paeoniae Rubra, Radix Glycyrrhizae; for diarrhea, with Radix Puerariae, Rhizoma Coptidis, etc.; for jaundice due to invasion of damp-heat, it is used as an assistant drug in combination with Herba Artemisiae Scopariae, Fructus Gardeniae, etc.; for painful urination and stranguria due to invasion of the urinary bladder by damp-heat, with Radix Rehmanniae, Caulis Akebiae, etc.

2.Purging fire and removing toxic materials.

For the treatment of acute febrile disease marked by high fever and irascibility, yellow fur, rapid pulse, etc., it is often combined with Rhizoma Coptidis, Fructus Gardeniae, etc.; for cough due to invasion of the lung by evil heat, marked by cough with expectoration of purulent yellow sputum, with Cortex Mori Radicis, Rhizoma Anemarrhenae, Radix Ophiopogonis, etc.; for carbuncle or skin pyogenic infection or scald or burn, with the drugs for purging fire and removing toxic materials and they may be taken by mouth or used locally.

3.Elimibating heat and calming fetus.

For the treatment of threatened abortion with over fetal movement due to invasion of fetus by heat it is often combined with Rhizoma Atractylodis Macrocephalae, Radix Angelicae Sinensis, etc. Besides, it can also be used to treat spitting blood, epistaxis, hematochezia, metrorrhagia, etc., due to abundant heat and presence of extravasation of blood; to treat arteriosclerosis, hypertension due to hyperactivity of Liver-Yang, marked by headache, bitterness of the mouth, flush face, fidget, etc., it may be combined with Spica Prunellae, Flos Chrysanthemi, Concha Haliotidis, etc.