Mai Dong, the wheat grain that does not fear winter

Mai Dong shortens Mai Men Dong, a name that brings together wheat, its awns and winter: the tuberous root looks like a coarse grain of wheat fringed with fine rootlets, and the leaves, like those of the leek, stay green all winter. This evergreen perennial, Japanese ophiopogon, forms dense clumps of arching leaves, then bears small white to lilac flowers and brilliant cobalt-blue berries. Its fleshy roots are harvested in early summer. Two reference growing regions give two qualities: Zhejiang, long held to be the finest, and Sichuan, the country’s leading production centre.

Nourishing Yin, restoring the Fluids

In traditional Chinese medicine, Mai Dong is sweet, slightly bitter and slightly cool: sweetness nourishes and moistens, the slight bitterness makes things descend, and the slight coolness makes it possible to nourish the Yin without chilling abruptly. The Ben Cao Zheng Yi calls it very sweet, rich and unctuous, and places it in the first rank of sweet supplementing herbs. Its most fundamental action is to nourish the Yin and generate the Fluids: when they run low, through Heat, age or a dry climate, it restores the missing moisture. The Lung, says tradition, dreads Dryness: it gives it back its moistness.

Calming the Heart, moistening the Stomach

Through the Heart, it nourishes the Yin and gently calms the mind when an empty heat rises and agitates. It also moistens a Stomach that has become dry and makes its Qi descend again. When Qi and Yin are lacking together, tradition combines it with herbs that supplement the Qi: this is the logic of Sheng Mai San, where it sits alongside five-flavour berry; one generates the Fluids, the other retains them. It is often compared with Chinese asparagus: Mai Dong, only slightly cool, is lighter on digestion and enters the Heart.