Chui Pen Cao, the herb that spills over the pot

Chui Pen Cao literally reads “the herb that hangs down from the pot”: it is a stonecrop (Sedum sarmentosum), a creeping succulent whose stems spill over the rim of a pot and hang down like a curtain. Its small, fleshy, bright yellow-green leaves are arranged in threes, and from May to July it is covered in small, star-shaped yellow flowers. It grows in sun or partial shade, in rock crevices and along paths, across much of China, Korea and Japan, and when dormant withstands down to -40 °C. It is harvested whole in summer and autumn, to be used fresh or dried.

Blandness that lets Dampness out

In Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chui Pen Cao is cool, sweet and bland in flavour, and the bland flavour is the key to this plant: according to tradition, blandness neither nourishes nor disperses, it lets Dampness seep downwards and leave through the urine. Sweetness tempers: it is a plant that clears without upsetting the Middle, which sets it apart from the great bitter herbs of its category. It enters the Liver and Gallbladder, for Damp-Heat, and the Small Intestine, which tradition entrusts with separating the clear from the turbid and sending the turbid downwards.

A village herb turned official

It appears in none of the great ancient classics: its first known mention is late, under the Qing, and for centuries it remained a local resource that herbal shops did not keep in stock. In the 20th century, Chinese research took an interest in it for the Liver, and it entered the Chinese Pharmacopoeia in 1977: a wayside plant that became an official substance within a generation. It pairs readily with capillaris wormwood, to clear Damp-Heat from the Liver and Gallbladder together.