Artemisia anomala, the herb that bears a man’s name

Liu Ji Nu is not a description: it is a person’s name, that of Liu Yu, called Ji Nu in childhood, and it is the only substance in the Chinese pharmacopoeia named after an emperor. Legend has it that he discovered the plant by following spirit children who were crushing it for the king of snakes, then used it for his soldiers. Artemisia anomala is a perennial of the Asteraceae family, 80 cm to 1.5 m tall, distinctly aromatic: that is its first characteristic. It is cut in flower, in August and September, and remains tied to Jiangnan, the land south of the Yangtze, where its use is oldest.

Setting the Blood moving again

In traditional Chinese medicine, Artemisia anomala is bitter and warm: bitterness makes things descend, warmth sets things in motion, and the Blood, says tradition, circulates when it receives warmth. It enters the Heart, which governs the Blood, and the Spleen, which holds it. Its primary action is to break up congealed Blood and open the meridians, and the vocabulary is that of breaking, not of mere movement: it is a frank herb, for short and targeted use, rather than an everyday one. The Ben Cao Jing Shu puts it in one phrase: its nature is to run, and it runs in the Blood.

Hua Shi Dan, “the pill that dissolves food”

Its second side is surprising. Its aromatic character, says tradition, “awakens” the Spleen and the Stomach: when food stagnates and weighs heavy, it makes it go down. This side is so clear that it earned it a popular nickname, Hua Shi Dan, “the pill that dissolves food”, and no other substance in its class brings together Blood and digestion in this way. One last point matters for the buyer: two plants from different families circulate under this name. Southern Liu Ji Nu, Artemisia anomala, warm, is the one of the classical descriptions; the northern one is an entirely different plant, cold in nature.