Description

Ze Lan, “the lan of the marshes”

Ze Lan reads “the lan of the marshes”. Ancient Chinese used lan for fragrant herbs, while modern Chinese keeps the word for orchids: this is not one. Bugleweed belongs to the mint family, and its name says exactly where it grows: marshes, stream banks and waterlogged lowlands. It is recognised by its square, yellowish-green stem, distinctly purple at the nodes and covered in fine white down; its stems and leaves are harvested from summer to autumn, when they are at their fullest. The texts give it a rank: “an essential substance of the feminine sphere”.

Setting the Blood in motion, without forcing

In Traditional Chinese Medicine, Ze Lan is slightly warm, with a bitter and pungent flavour. Pungent disperses and moves, bitter brings down, and the slight warmth opens what Cold has constricted; no trait is pushed, and the texts said it in four characters: it moves without forcing. Linked with the Liver, which stores the Blood, it is traditionally used to move the Blood, harmonise the cycle and disperse Stasis, that halted Blood which settles and knots. The Ben Cao Tong Xuan describes it thus: through its fragrance it gladdens the Spleen; by untying, it gladdens the Liver and sets the Blood in motion.

Blood and water at once

Its second meridian, the Spleen, which governs the Fluids, explains what is rare about it: it works on the Blood and on water at the same time. The traditional reasoning is circular: halted Blood hinders the waterways, and retained water in turn hinders the Blood; freeing one frees the other. It is often compared with motherwort: the latter is cool and more vigorous, Ze Lan slightly warm and gentler, preferred when the terrain is cold. With Chinese angelica, which nourishes the Blood, it moves the Blood without depleting it.