A rare wild herb in the mountains, its fruit is called "Heavenly Pearl" and its root is called "Earthly Pearl", hailed as the sacred medicine of Shennongjia
In the primeval forests of Shennongjia in our country, not only does the legend of the "wild man" circulate, but there are also countless rare plants of various kinds. Especially the many kinds of Chinese herbal medicines, many of which are rich in legendary color, such as Paris polyphylla, "a bowl of water by the river", "one pearl on top of the head", and so on. Their names are thunderous to the ear, yet many people have heard of them but never seen them. Today let us talk about this rare "one pearl on top of the head", whose fruit and root can both be used as medicine, with extremely high value, hailed as the "sacred medicine of Shennongjia".
The scientific name of "one pearl on top of the head" is Trillium tschonoskii, and it is a plant of the Liliaceae family, so its flowers are as white and beautiful as lily flowers. Trillium tschonoskii is very easy to identify, because it has 3 leaves and 3 flowers, highly distinctive and very unusual. When the fruit of Trillium tschonoskii ripens, it is a round fruit of dark purple color, like a dazzling black pearl. Because the fruit grows at the top of the plant, folk people call it "Heavenly Pearl" or "one pearl on top of the head". Corresponding to the fruit is its root, commonly known as the "Earthly Pearl".
The root of Trillium tschonoskii is actually not round; it has many fine fibrous roots, but when people process the medicinal material, they are accustomed to gathering these fine fibrous roots into an oval shape, and that is how it got the name "Earthly Pearl". The most valuable parts of Trillium tschonoskii are the fruit and the root, which have the effects of stopping bleeding and promoting blood circulation, calming and soothing the nerves, relieving pain, detoxifying, and removing rheumatism. In daily life, people in the Shennongjia forest region used to pick its fruit and root to make medicinal wine, but today Trillium tschonoskii has become a national third-class protected plant, and digging it up is prohibited in nature reserves.
Because of its high medicinal value and ornamental value, Trillium tschonoskii was heavily dug up in the past, and in addition its seeds have a relatively low natural germination rate, resulting in fewer and fewer distributions of it. Also, the excessive logging of forests in the past destroyed the growing environment of Trillium tschonoskii, because it is a plant that grows under the forest canopy. After many years of research by scientists, Trillium tschonoskii has now been brought under artificial cultivation for medicinal use and other research.
Dear readers, do you know this rare wild herb in the mountains?