What is the difference between Lingcao and Gancao? A quick guide to telling the two apart
Lingcao and Gancao are the same plant. Lingcao, also known as Gancao (licorice), uses its roots and rhizomes as medicine, and is the most commonly used drug in clinical practice. Raw Gancao can clear heat and detoxify, moisten the lungs and stop coughing, and harmonize the properties of other medicines; processed Gancao can tonify the spleen and boost qi, and its clinical dosage is extremely large, with a large export volume.
Lingxiangcao (Lysimachia foenum-graecum) carries a grassy, herbal aroma, with a fragrant scent and a sweet-astringent taste; its fragrance is fairly intense. In current applications, it is mainly used in spicy numbing recipes, such as the base for spicy numbing hot pot and the spices for grilled live fish. When using Lingxiangcao in a spicy numbing recipe, Xiaoming suggests that beginners position it as a supporting ingredient; the fragrance of Lingxiangcao is very recognizable and not easily masked, and using it can enrich the aromatic variety of the spicy numbing flavor, thereby bringing some added layers of complexity, but because of its ingredient nature, the amount used must not be large.
Gancao and Lingcao belong to the same traditional Chinese medicine, with effects of resolving phlegm and stopping coughing, relieving acute pain, clearing heat and detoxifying, and moderating medicinal properties; clinically it is mainly used to harmonize other medicines. Depending on the processing method, the effects also differ somewhat; for example, processed Gancao has a stronger effect of tonifying the spleen and boosting qi, while raw Gancao is effective at harmonizing medicinal properties and resolving phlegm and moistening the lungs.
Licorice extract, glycyrrhizin, and glycyrrhetinic acid have a deoxycorticosterone-like effect on various [conditions], can promote sodium and water retention and increase potassium excretion, showing a mineralocorticoid-like effect; licorice extract and glycyrrhizin can cause thymus atrophy in rats, increase adrenal weight, reduce eosinophils and lymphocytes in the blood, and increase free 17-hydroxycorticosterone in the urine, showing a glucocorticoid-like effect.