If We Could Talk To The Dinosaurs

Welcome to the next edition of my blog. This blog has been dominated by posts that refer to plants as medicine, it is thus no surprise that the name of the blog is "Plants as Medicine." However, as many of you should know by now, I have migrated over to my new website www.sylvanbotanical.com/blog There you will find several plants as medicine blogs that I have recently written. So, I would like to encourage you to migrate there with me. If, however, you are interested in what you read through the rest of this page, I welcome you to stay and read whatever I might be inspired to write.

Recently I have been very busy with more projects than anyone should try to take on at one time. Part of that is to help try to keep me busy during a time period that has brought about a flood of challenging feelings with what would have been the first birthday of Autumn Reine Garran and the coming of the Chinese New Year, which is when she passed at the tender age of just 3 months old.

But, that is not what I want to talk about today. I would like to take you through some of the meanderings of my mind (this might be a good time to leave as the inner workings of my mind are likely to turn some of you off). Without going into the details of why, I have been thinking a lot about soils, plants, and the interactions between them (along with myriad other living creatures) and humans. To be honest this is a frequent path that my mind meanders down. It is this path that got me to thinking about the relatively short period of time humans have been cultivating the ground, I mean relative to the history of both humans and the Earth in general. What amazes me the most is that we, as a whole, are not doing a very efficient job of it and I am starting to wonder if we might go the way of the dinosaurs. No, I am not a 2012 freak! And, no I am not a fatalist. However, when I start to consider ecology and systems biology, I start to wonder how long the Earth can facilitate the type of consumption humans are currently gorging.

So, what would the dinosaurs say if we could ask them their perspective on Earth's current status? I, of course, have absolutely no idea what they would say, and even if I could hear them I only speak two languages and I am pretty sure there wouldn't be much cross-over in vocabulary. That said, I think a game of charades would work pretty well. It would go something like this. One big dinosaur could stand by a tar pit, chomping on the giant ferns he likes to eat, while a small dinosaurs runs between his legs chasing a huge insect. He could gesture by moving backward toward the tar pit that over time, the tar pit got larger and larger and the ferns began to die, making it harder and harder for him to find food, and harder and harder for the rest of the plants to live (most dinosaurs ate plants), thus their food source slowly disappeared. And, the small dinosaur could gesture that he can no longer find the insects that he likes to eat. Of course the reason for this is that the insect relies on the flowers for food, and since the flowers are disappearing, so are the insects.

Now, I am not saying that this is what happened exactly, but I am saying that this is sort of what is happening now. There is a cascade effect and human's actions affect everything, no matter if they can see it or not. It is the plants and everything that depends on them (that's us by the way!) that are the Earth's way of preserving and storing water and a whole host of other things necessary for life. Plants are what enable diversity and that diversity is what gave birth to us and so many things that we consider precious. Remember that just because you don't like that flower/plant/insect/person or your neighbor's dog, doesn't mean that there aren't a whole host of other organisms that aren't dependent on it for their survival. This may lead you to say something like, "Well, what good is that wasp? Why shouldn't I kill it before it bites me?" To that I would say that if you have a garden you should know that that wasp is what eats those critters that eat your rose bushes! Then you say, "That's OK, I'll just spray insecticide on the rose bushes to kill the damn critters." To that I say, "And now you have killed the very life that supports your rose bushes (not just the critters eating it, but myriad living creature that you can't see but that support the life of the soil your plants live in). Therefore, your rose bushes will lack the nutrition they need from the soil because it is those other organisms that work together, either directly or indirectly, with your roses so that it can get the nutrition it needs." And you say, "Then I will use fertilizer to help my roses."

I hope my readers can see where this is going. So, I would like to encourage you all to save something, cotton from that pill bottle, the jar from the pickles you bought at the store, or anything else you can to reuse as much as possible. I would like to encourage you to use worms to compost, even if you live in the city. You probably have plants in your house or on your balcony which would be VERY happy to have the worm castings and will reward you with brilliant life and abundant flowers. If you have a garden, think of ways to build the soil, protect it, make the "top soil" deeper and deeper with each passing year. By doing as many of these things as we can we can give back a little something to the very thing that sustains us, this spinning ball we call Earth.

Thanks for visiting, I hope you will find your way over to www.sylvanbotanical.com/blog to see all the blogs on Plants as Medicine and encourage you to stick around here for more of my briefs on the meanderings of my mind....perhaps I will rename the blog that....If you have a better idea, please post a note and I will use it to help me make my decision.

Wild Ginger (Asarum species)

Recently a question was asked about the possible substitutes that could be used in place of the Chinese herb "xi xin" (細辛) Asarum sp. because the practitioner was concerned the this herb is "toxic." This post is part of my response and a very short over-view of the literature on this herb in regards to its toxicity and dosage. This is not meant to be exhaustive in any way.

Asarum delavayi 川滇細辛 Yunnan, China

While I will agree that xi xin has some minor toxicity issues, I also think it is quite safe when use appropriately. I guess when I hear a practitioner say they don't want to use an herb because it is toxic I feel the need to try to tease out where this is coming from in hopes to better understand how practitioners are thinking. Also, when one says they don't want to use an herb because it is toxic, I start to wonder what "toxic" means to that person. If you take enough of anything it can be toxic.

I took three random books on materia medica in Chinese off my self and found this information. The first one is "Clinical Uses of Chinese Medicinals" which states xi xin "has small toxin" or it may be translated "slightly toxic." Of course when a Chinese book says that there is no way to know if they are referring to toxicity as we might think of it, i.e. there is some chemical in the substance that may cause cancer, or it it is just really "hot" and when used in large doses can cause noticeable physical "side effects." The other two are transcibed lectures from very well known materia medica scholars Lectures in Clinical Uses Chinese Medicinals by Zhang Ting-mo and Lectures in Chinese Medicinals by Yan Zheng-hua. Interestingly neither mention toxicity of xi xin and combined the two take up nearly 6 pages of writing. That's a lot of talking about an herb without any mention that it is toxic, don't you think?

The Grand Dictionary of Chinese Herbs lists 16 species (plus a couple sub-species).
Asarum debile (tong qian xi xin) no mention of toxicity, dosage 2-6g
Asarum caudigerum (wei hua xi xin) has small toxin, dosage 3-6g
Asarum caulescens (shuang ye xi xin), A. himalaicum (dan ye xi xin), A. chinense (chuan bei xi xin), A. fukienense (fu jian xi xin), A. delavayi (chuan dian xi xin) are all under the heading of "tu xi xin" there are several different sources cited for these herbs. One says there is no toxicity while another cites some research that suggests over-dose could cause difficulty breathing. I don't have the research, so I don't know any more than that. Dosage 1-3g
Asarum forbesii (du heng), A. ichangense (xiao ye ma ti xiang) have entries for both non-toxic and "has small toxin" dosage 1.5-6g
Asarum geophilum (da kui wa) listed as non-toxic, dosage 1-3g
Asarum heterotropoides (bei xi xin), A. sieboldii (hua xi xin), A. sieboldii var. seoulense (han cheng xi xin) all under the heading of "xi xin" and is said to "have small toxin" although a number of the older texts cited such as the Shen Nong Ben Cao and the Bie Lu either don't mention toxicity or say it is non-toxic. Dosage 1.5-9g (1-3g when used as a powder)
Asarum splendens (hua lian xi xin) "has small toxin" dosage 2-3g

For fun, I also looked in the PMPH "jiao cai," which is a pretty standard textbook and it says, 唯有小毒, 用当宜慎 "wei you xiao du, yong dang yi shen" which literally translates to "only has small toxin, use should appropriate caution" The second part of which I would render as "it should be used appropriately and with caution." they give the dosage at 3-5g

I have harvested 3 different species of this plant in the US, and used both these species and an unknown number of Chinese species for 20 years and never been concerned with their toxicity. I use it appropriately, simple as that. This herb has a pretty narrow usage and is extremely effective when employed properly.

Asarum marmoratum with flower inset bottom right corner. Photo from Northern California.

So, I would say that anyone who has graduated from a reputable school, having studied Chinese herbs (or Western herbs for that matter) should be able to very comfortably employ any Asarum species without being concerned with toxicity. I am not saying one should not be aware of its restrictions, but being aware of, say dosage, should be pretty basic and, rightly or wrongly, I assume that a licensed practitioner should know this information about any herb they use.

Perilla frutescens Zi Su 紫苏

I must apologize to my regular readers. I have been so busy over the last couple months that I have not been keeping up with my blog. What I have I been doing that has taken so much time that I couldn't give my readers something new? Well mostly I have been engrossed in promoting my newest project Sylvan Institute of Botanical Medicine, which can be found at www.syvlanbotanical.com, but I have also been quite engaged in several other things, one of which is finally having a regular clinic space here in Beijing for me to practice privately in while also doing some teaching at the location where the clinic is.

But that is probably not really what you want to hear about, you didn't sign on to this blog to listen to my life's meanderings, now did you? So, today I will touch on the wonderful herb known as Perilla frutescens in Latin but in Chinese it is called Zi Su (紫苏). The Chinese name is a dead give away for its appearance because the character zi (紫) means purple, and in fact the leaf and stem of this plant are purple (there is also a green variety).

Perillia frutescens seeds

There are three different parts of the plant used in Chinese medicine, the leaf (zi su ye 紫苏叶), the stem (zi su geng 紫苏梗), and the seed (zi su zi 紫苏子). I won't bore you with all the details, but the leaf is commonly used for illnesses such as the common cold as well as a number of digestive illnesses, one of which is seafood poisoning. It should be noted here that the original coloring of pickled ginger served with sushi came from this leaf in the pickling process. It is very likely that most of the pickled ginger served these days in sushi restaurants is artificially colored. The stem is primarily used to regulate qi in the digestion. It is said to be able to both move the qi up and down, so is used in formulas with other herbs to facilitate this.

I recently harvested a bit of Perilla seed from the Autumn Reine Learning Garden, which is located just north of Beijing. Although I let most of the seeds be eaten by the birds that frequent the garden, I decided to harvest some last week. In all I ended up with about 30 grams of seeds, more than enough to have a large planting this next season. The plants in the garden were nearly 2 meters tall (6 feet) and probably would have yielded 10 times that many seeds if I had harvested at the right time. But I like the idea of feeding the birds; I hope they come back to eat the bugs next year in return for such a nice gift of seeds this Fall. Perilla seed's main function is to direct qi downward for the treatment of cough. It also disperses phlegm, so it is a common herb for me to use in formulas for coughing. Although it is considered warm, I do not consider it overly so, and thus it is safe to use in many different types of cough, but it is particularly useful when there is deficiency of the lung and spleen leading to the cough and phlegm.

I would like to invite my readers to please have a look at the website I mentioned above www.sylvanbotanical.com we have a number of classes and courses you might find interesting. We also have a number of new features that we are currently working on in order to launch around the new year including a regular broadcast that will mostly be hosted by yours truly.

Plants as Medicine: Sylvan Institute of Botanical Medicine

Plants as Medicine: Sylvan Institute of Botanical Medicine: Thanks for stopping by for another read. I am proud to announce today the launch of a project my dear friend Benjamin Zappin and I have b...