What is the difference between plantain and houttuynia? A quick guide to telling them apart
In the rural countryside, wild plants such as plantain and houttuynia can be seen everywhere. People in the countryside may be able to tell them apart, but city dwellers may not. Below we introduce the differences between plantain and houttuynia.
Difference one: different families and genera
Plantain is an annual or biennial herbaceous plant of the genus Plantago in the family Plantaginaceae. Houttuynia is a perennial herbaceous plant of the genus Houttuynia in the family Saururaceae.
Difference two: different appearance
Plantain has a short rhizome, and its leaves grow from the base in a rosette, lying flat, spreading at an angle, or standing upright; the leaf blades are papery, elliptic, elliptic-lanceolate, or ovate-lanceolate, with shallow wavy blunt teeth, irregular serrations, or teeth along the edges, green, with sparse white short soft hairs on both sides. The stem of houttuynia is flat-cylindrical, twisted, brownish-yellow on the surface, with several longitudinal ridges and obvious nodes, with residual fibrous roots at the lower nodes; the leaf blades are curled and wrinkled, heart-shaped when flattened, with entire margins, the upper surface dark yellow-green to dark brown, and the lower surface grayish-green or grayish-brown.
Difference three: different flowers and fruits
The inflorescence stalk of plantain is 5-18cm long, sparsely covered with white short soft hairs, the inflorescence is 6-12cm long, the flowers are white, and the capsule is ovate-elliptic to conical-ovate. The peduncle of houttuynia is 1.5-3 cm long, hairless, the inflorescence is about 2 cm long, the flowers are white, and the capsule is ovate.
Difference four: different uses
The young seedlings of plantain are edible; generally the young tender seedlings are picked in April-May, lightly boiled in boiling water, then served as a cold dish, dipped in sauce, stir-fried, used as filling, made into soup, or steamed with dough. Its dried or fresh whole plant can be used as medicine; it is harvested in autumn, impurities are removed, it is washed, cut into sections, and sun-dried. The yellow-brown roots of houttuynia are edible and can also be used as a seasoning; they have a fishy smell, and are generally eaten as a cold dish, or stir-fried with meat. Its dried aboveground parts can be used as medicine; it is harvested in summer when the stems and leaves are lush and there are many flower spikes, impurities are removed, it is washed, cut into sections, and dried.
Difference five: different effects
Plantain is sweet in taste and cold in nature, and has the effects of clearing heat, promoting urination, removing phlegm, cooling blood, and detoxifying; it is used for edema with scanty urine, painful strangury due to heat, summer-damp diarrhea and dysentery, cough due to phlegm-heat, vomiting blood and nosebleeds, and swollen sores and toxic swellings. Houttuynia is pungent in taste and warm in nature, and has the effects of clearing heat and detoxifying, reducing abscesses and expelling pus, and promoting urination to treat strangury; it is used to treat lung abscess, sores and toxic swellings, hemorrhoids with bloody stool, and accumulated heat in the spleen and stomach caused by excess heat, heat toxin, damp pathogens, and phlegm-heat.