Since the beginning of civilization, people have begun to understand plants systematically, all in order to use them as resources. Humans spent thousands of years trying, and finally found that there are very few plant species that can produce starch, protein, fat and fiber to meet food and clothing needs. What can so many remaining plants be used for?
cure.
Doctor or botanist
In the traditional medicine of various civilizations, plants are the main source of medicinal herbs. As a result, almost all of the earliest documents documenting a large number of plant species were pharmacopoeias, or Materia Medica; the overlap between the two professional groups of early physicians and botanists was so high that Materia Medica is now regarded as a precursor to botany. If we want to understand the history of human understanding of a certain plant, we often have to consult ancient Materia Medica, and the authors of the species calendar must have experienced this.
When it comes to pharmacopoeias that record a large number of plant species, it is natural to mention Teacher Li and his "Compendium of Materia Medica".
It is interesting to compare the similarities and differences in the accounts of the same plant use in the Materia Medica literature of different civilizations. However, plant distribution has its own regional differences, and this comparison can be made by at least the species widely spread in the temperate zone of Eurasia.
Given that we live in a country with great social influence in traditional medicine, it is quite common for "the medicinal value of a certain plant to be familiar to the Chinese, but unknown to foreigners". But conversely, there seem to be very few plants that are distributed in China and abroad, have been used as medicinal materials by foreigners for thousands of years, and Chinese are not taken seriously, and one example I can think of is the xié herb.
Valerian inflorescence. Image: pixabay
Dye a touch of pink
Valeriana officinalis is distributed throughout the temperate and boreal regions of Asia and Europe, and is widely cultivated in North America. In China, valerian grows in a vast area from northeast to southwest at an altitude of 200 to 4500 meters; however, the name "valerian" cannot be found in the Materia Medica of successive dynasties.
In ancient texts, when the word "valerian" is associated with plants, it is used to describe the flower color of peony or camellia, such as "red valerian, white valerian, lake valerian", etc., describing red spots and stripes of varying shades. This is very appropriate, because one of the meanings of the word "valerian" is redness, especially the redness of the face after drunkenness.
Valerian flowers are slightly pink. Image: Jeffdelonge /wikimedia
It was the Japanese who combined the words "valerian" and "grass" to refer to a plant. Valerian is also distributed in Japan, and when it blooms, a dark pink bud is mixed with light pink flowers, much like a local tie-dye process called "deer dyeing" ("deer の子絞り" or "鹿の子染め", which has the effect of dyeing like a spot on the back of a sika deer). Therefore, the Japanese call this plant "Deer Grass" (鹿の子草), and when its roots are medicated, they use the more elegant name "纈草" (けっそう), also known as "Yoshicho" (きっそう).
Chinese the original meaning of the word "缬" is tie-dye, "to tie the silk to dye it, to unravel the silk into the text of valerian also" (Tang · Xuanying "All Sutras and Meanings"), and the name "Valerian" was introduced to China from Japanese botanical literature in modern times with the gradual study of the West and the East.
Deer-dyed clothes. Image: thehipp.org
Cat owners also love to eat
In fact, Chinese Materia Medica has recorded plants of valerian, but not by this name, but with "horseshoe incense" and "spider incense".
"Horseshoe incense" is found in the "Yunnan Materia Medica": "Horseshoe incense, a ghost to see sorrow." Shaped like a calf's tongue, the leaves are black", judging from the limited descriptions and local medicines that have been passed down to this day, referring to the plant Valeriana jatamansi, also known as heart-leaf valerian.
Today, horseshoe is the name of the genus Saruma in the family Aristolochiacea, a close relative of the genus Asarum, and even the Latin name is changed by moving the a at the beginning of the latter to the end of the word. It is no coincidence that spider incense has a common name of soil spices, but rather shows that in the absence of taxonomy, these heart-shaped leaves and root-scented plants were very confusing.
Leaves of valerian (left) and leaves of spider incense (right). Image: Randy Nonenmacher / wikimedia; Muhammad Adnan / Ethnobotany Research and Applications (2014)
The name "spider incense" was first seen in the "Compendium of Materia Medica", and Li Shizhen rarely created a noun explanation: "Spider incense, out of the Songpan Mountains of Maozhou, ShuXi, the grass roots are also." Black has thick whiskers, shaped like spiders and ben and moth, and the smell is fragrant, and the other person is also heavy. Or cloud cats like to eat. ”
It is estimated that Teacher Li asked the right person this time, did not pat his own head, made a correct record of the origin of spider incense (southwest mountainous land), the form (the root looks like The root looks like the grass gǎo ben, the Sichuan Root Xiōng), and also buried the small Easter eggs that the cat owner also likes to eat - this is actually true! However, spider incense is not an important medicinal material after all, after Li Shizhen's few strokes, other doctors have not paid much attention to it, and today it appears more in the prescriptions of ethnic minorities in the southwest.
The millennium aristocracy took it as its name
Compared with the East, valerian is treated very differently in the traditional medicine community in the West, and the medicinal history can be traced back to ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. The earliest record of the value of valerian medicine was the "father of medicine" Hippocrates; after him, there was a succession of names that shone in the history of naturalism and medicine: DiosCorides, Pliny, Galen, Ibn Sina (this one is a little far away)...
To this day, valerian remains an important herb for "traditional Western medicine" and has a traditional effect – calming the nerves and aiding sleep. In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Valerian appears in Professor Snape's Advanced Potions Making course to dispense the Living Hell Decoction, a potent hypnotic.
It gives the school bully a headache. Image: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
The ancient Romans apparently placed too many unrealistic expectations on valerian's efficacy. Its name is a variant of the Latin word valere, meaning "to become strong and healthy." The word also derived from the family name of an ancient Roman nobleman: Valerius(♂)/Valeria(♀). This nobleman with the same name as Valerian is very prominent in the history of ancient Rome, from the establishment of the Roman Republic to the fall of the Western Roman Empire, in a period of more than a thousand years, dozens of consuls and emperors have been produced, which is a real thousand-year-old family, worthy of a strong and healthy family name.
The ancient Romans used a three-name method, for example, Caesar's full name was Gaius Julius Caesar, Gaius was his real name, Caesar was a surname (later evolved into an imperial title), and Julius in the middle was the family name, usually representing the common ancestor of different families.
Valerian's position in "traditional Western medicine" is so important that there will naturally be no shortage of scientific research on its efficacy. All in all, valerian and its extracts are now mainly used for hypnosis and anxiolytic, the former is effective but it is not clear which ingredients work, and the latter has only some less high-quality evidence. In addition, as a spice plant, valerian is also often found in alternative medical methods such as aromatherapy or in the market for health care products.
Patches of valerian. Image: Evelyn Simak
Beware of cat and mouse family pros
Valerian's scent is very special, and different water content and odor concentration can give people a very different feeling. Taxonomically , Valerian belongs to the subfamily Valerian in the honeysuckle family , which in the old taxonomic system was a separate family of rancidaceae. The word bad sauce seems to make people want to pinch their noses, as the literal meaning of the roots of this type of plant emit a smell similar to rotten bean paste when fresh — to put it bluntly, the smell of.
Even their floral scents are subtle. In the open, one or two valerian flowers smell pleasantly fragrant; if you pick a large bouquet of flowers and put them in a vase, the smell in the house can drive people crazy after a while. The line between the scents is so blurred that sometimes one valerian smells good and the other next to it smells of.
The smell of is pink. Image: Andrew Curtis
Usually, the dry valerian root has a positive scent and even has a refreshing feeling, as long as you don't let it get damp. Gas chromatography mass spectrometry analysis showed that about 40% of the volatile components of valerian root are dragon's brain ester, as well as substances such as pine and α-pine, which bring an aroma similar to a mixture of pine and camphor; and about 4% of vinyl acetate, which has a pungent odor and is a class 2B carcinogen.
But what exactly makes fresh valerian smell like feces, I still don't understand. In addition, valerian root also contains a compound that is familiar to biological dogs, Valine (Valine), which is named after valerian. I believe that many people know the word "valerian" from valine.
Dried valerian root. Image: 3268zauber /wikimedia
Finally, let's talk about the little Easter egg about the cat owner. Valerian and its extracts have an unusual appeal to cats, just like catnip (wattle). The substance that causes the cat to hinge after eating valerian is kiwi alkali, and the effects include drooling, rolling, sluggish eyes, licking everywhere, exposing the belly and other intoxicating states. Valerian also contains 3-mercapto-3-methyl-1-butanol, a cat pheromone that smells of cat urine and can attract cats from a distance.
If you want to flirt with your master, or go outdoors to hook up with a new master, you may wish to buy some valerian roots to try. Be careful, though, that rats infected with Toxoplasma gondii will change from disgust to the smell of cat urine, so valerian may also attract mice. In some versions of the Magic Fluter fairy tale, the Magic Piper uses valerian grass and flute sounds to attract mice. The abuse of valerian root may lead to the harmonious scene of cat and mouse family relatives, and it must not be careless.
Dried valerian. Image: Debivort/wikimedia
Reprinted in: https://www.guokr.com/article/458554/