Traditional Chinese herbal medicine has a long history of discovering plants which can be used for medical purposes.
The accumulation of the knowledge and experience increases with time. In this development, some plants that have a similar appearance share the same common names. Although there are differentiating names to the plants, people still often use only the common names, which can bring confusion-even danger-in the practice as some of the herbs are toxic.
Thus practitioners should pay special attention to the differentiating names and also check the Latin names to ensure that the correct herb is prescribed before applying them in practice.
The most commonly used herbs with common names and differentiating names are as follows:
• Chuan Bei Mu (Fritillariae cirrhosae bulbus) and Zhe Bei Mu (Fritillariae thunbergii bulbus)
• Chuan Niu Xi (Cyathulae radix) and Huai Niu Xi (Achyranthis bidentatae radix)
• Nan Sha Shen (Adenophorae radix) and Bei Sha Shen (Glehniae radix)
• Nan Wu Jia Pi (Acanthopanacis cortex) and Bei Wu Jia Pi (Periploca sepium bunge)
• Han Fang Ji (Stephaniae tetrandrae radix) and Mu Fang Ji (Aristolochiae fangchi radix)
• Guan Mu Tong (Aristolochia manshurensis caulis) and Chuan Mu Tong (Clematidis armandii caulis)
• Qing Mu Xiang (Aristolochia debilis), Chuan Mu Xiang (Vladimirae radix), Guang Mu Xiang (Aucklandiae radix) and Mu Xiang (Aucklandiae radix)
