Fang Feng, “guarding against the Wind”

Fang Feng reads “guarding against the Wind”. Li Shizhen explains it thus: to guard is to defend, and its first virtue is to act on the Wind, hence its name; it was also called Ping Feng, “the screen”. It is the root of a perennial of the Apiaceae family, the only species in its genus, which likes grassy slopes in cool, dry climates. Its reference terroir is north-east China, which yields Guan Fang Feng, the quality recognised as the finest. A fine root is read at the crown: tight rings, the “earthworm head”, and a tuft of brown fibres, the “broom head”.

The Wind herb par excellence

In Traditional Chinese Medicine, Fang Feng is slightly warm, with a pungent and sweet flavour. Pungent disperses and pushes towards the surface, sweet softens, and the light warmth makes it a moderate herb. Each of its meridians answers a use: the Bladder, the outermost meridian, which guards the surface, where it meets the Wind lodged there; the Liver, which governs the sinews; the Spleen, which transforms Dampness. Tradition credits it with releasing the surface and expelling Wind, and with overcoming Wind-Dampness lodged in the flesh and joints, especially when the discomfort moves from one place to another.

The gentlest of the Wind herbs

Classical physicians nicknamed it “the moistening agent among the Wind herbs”: sweet and barely warm, it disperses without drying, where most herbs in this register are hot and drying. Its classical partner is schizonepeta: both pungent and warm, they release the surface better together than apart, schizonepeta reaching the skin, Fang Feng better overcoming Dampness. The Zhen Zhu Nang even distinguishes two parts of the root: the body expels Wind from above, the tip Wind from below.