Is the thousand-year-old human-shaped He Shou Wu (Polygonum multiflorum) actually real?
For most people, the thousand-year-old human-shaped He Shou Wu is nothing but a legend. Because it is so rare, people grow ever more curious about it, and the price gap between wild and cultivated specimens is also very large. As a result, some people cultivate human-shaped He Shou Wu through certain methods and pass it off as "thousand-year-old human-shaped He Shou Wu" to rake in huge profits. According to experts, there are mainly three methods of faking it. Let us take a look below!
Carving a fake from palm heart
Take a piece of palm heart larger than a fist and whittle it with a knife into the outline of a human body with hands, feet and a head. Then dig a hole at the head position, insert a He Shou Wu vine into it, fix it with toothpicks, and finally smear it with yellow mud and charcoal ash to make it blackish-yellow. In this way, a highly human-shaped "thousand-year He Shou Wu" is produced. Why do the forgers choose palm heart as the mold material? According to botanical experts, the flesh of palm is similar to that of He Shou Wu and contains a lot of water, so after the He Shou Wu vine is inserted it easily absorbs moisture and does not wither easily, which is why palm heart is mostly used for carving. In addition, some people also use banana rhizomes to carve human-shaped He Shou Wu.
Grafting He Shou Wu onto yam tubers
The forgers use yam (also known as tu shu), which is closely related to He Shou Wu, as the host body, graft the He Shou Wu vine into it, and then place the yam into a human-shaped mold. After about half a year of growth, the He Shou Wu vine and the yam body merge together. The yam grows very quickly, and once the mold is removed, it has become "human-shaped".
Cultivating He Shou Wu inside a mold
A one-year-old He Shou Wu is transplanted into a human-shaped mold to restrict its normal growth. After several years of growth, the He Shou Wu develops into a human shape. Some forgers even add male or female features to the mold, and some even produce male and female in pairs. This faking method is clever, the shape is lifelike, and the material is genuine, so it easily deceives people.
How to tell real He Shou Wu from fake
Experts say that in fact it is relatively easy to distinguish wild He Shou Wu from cultivated He Shou Wu, and it can be identified by the following features: the surface of wild He Shou Wu is rather rough, uneven, irregular in overall shape, and not easy to break. Man-made human-shaped He Shou Wu is covered with white rootlets on the outside, is itself rather brittle and breaks as soon as it is bent, and if the skin is cut slightly, a white gelatinous liquid flows out. The so-called "thousand-year-old human-shaped He Shou Wu" is basically a scam.