Bai Hua She She Cao, the snake-tongue herb

Bai Hua She She Cao breaks down like this: “white-flowered snake-tongue herb”. Its leaves are narrow and tapering like a tongue, its flowers tiny and white; the name is a description, nothing more, and it refers to no animal product. It is a small, almost prostrate annual of the madder family (Rubiaceae), which grows at the edge of wet rice paddies, in ditches and along paths in southern China. A legend tells that a physician saw it in a dream, born from the quivering tongue of a white snake, then found it at the foot of his house. Its folk use arose on the south-east coast at the end of the Qing, and its first formal record dates from 1959.

Clearing Heat, within and below

In Traditional Chinese Medicine, the plant is cold, bitter, sweet and bland in flavour. The bitter clears out Heat, the sweetness tempers the whole and keeps it from being harsh: a frankly cold herb but not an aggressive one. It enters the Stomach, Large Intestine and Small Intestine, three meridians that place it within and below, not at the surface. Clearing Heat is its main action, by far the strongest; it also gently moves Blood.

The bland that lets water flow

Its bland flavour is the most interesting of the three: in the tradition, the bland lets water flow, and an almost tasteless substance adds nothing to the body and draws downward. Hence its second side: letting water flow and removing Damp-Heat by the urinary route. With barbed skullcap (Ban Zhi Lian), it forms its most famous pairing: one works from below, the other through the Blood. Being cold, it is readily accompanied by herbs that warm or support the Spleen, to spare the Middle.

Key benefits

Heat cleared & coolness

Cold and bitter, it clears Heat within, without harshness thanks to its sweetness.

Urinary comfort & flowing water

Its bland flavour lets water flow downward and supports urinary comfort according to Chinese tradition.

Damp-Heat cleared

It clears Damp-Heat and opens a way out for it below.