Centipeda, the herb the goose won’t eat

E Bu Shi Cao reads word for word “the herb the goose does not eat”. Li Shizhen explains it: the plant looks like young coriander, but its smell is so pungent and unpleasant that even geese leave it alone. A country legend tells of a child minding geese who noticed the one little plant they would not graze; he sniffed it and sneezed so hard that he never forgot it. The anecdote already describes its use. It is a small annual of the daisy family, with creeping stems that root at the nodes and tiny flower heads, fond of rice paddies and damp ground; it grows from the north to the south of China, especially in Zhejiang, Hubei, Jiangsu and Guangdong.

Rising to the head, opening the orifices

In Traditional Chinese Medicine, centipeda is warm, with a single flavour taken to its extreme, the pungent: the Ben Cao Hui Yan calls it “fiercely pungent”. The pungent opens, disperses and rises. Associated with the Lung, on which the tradition makes the nose depend, it is traditionally used to open the orifices of the nose, its signature action, which the tradition regards as the most specific in the whole pharmacopoeia. It also moderately disperses Wind-Cold freshly caught from outside, and transforms cold, abundant and clear Phlegm, which its warmth heats and its pungency sets in motion.

The nose, and the eyes too

Associated with the Liver, on which the tradition makes the eyes depend, it has been reputed since the Tang for brightening vision. For the nose, it is compared with magnolia bud (Xin Yi Hua), the other reference of its kind: magnolia is aromatic and gentle, and is taken first; centipeda is more pungent and more penetrating, and the tradition keeps it for more stubborn situations. It undergoes no fire processing: sun-dried, it is simply decocted with the rest, and is best taken after meals rather than on an empty stomach.