Original materials of traditional Chinese medicinal names of "Jinchai" and "Jinchai Shihu" based on vegetative morphology / 中国中药杂志

"Jinchai Shihu" were called Jinchai and recoded in "Taishang Zhouhou Yujingfang" of Tang Dynasty, which first clearly documented the name of Shihu in complex Dendrobium medicines and were condiered as superior medicinal articles. Morphological features are one of the naming principles for Chinese medicines. In this paper, botanical origin plants under the names of "Jinchai" and "Jinchai Shihu" were investigated. Based on documents from the local Chronicles and historical accounts, the Chinese characters of Jinchai have the distinctive features of gold color and two hair clasps. Moreover, the hair clasps are usually cylindrical in shape with uniform thickness in middle and upper part, and tapers off to the foot. And its bottom part style is simple and head part is complex. Thus we speculated the herbal "Jinchai" and "Jinchai Shihu" should have similar morphologic features as Chinese characters of Jinchai, including golden color and hairpin shape of stems without braches, short and solid sterm. After comparing the dried vegetative morphology of 10 common medicinal Dendrobium species, we suggested that of Dendrobium flexicaule matches well with the morphological features from historical herbal records.

Investigation of original materials under traditonal Chinese medicine names of "Jinchai" and "Jinchai Shihu" / 中国中药杂志

To clear from botanical view the original materials under the traditional Chinese medicine names of "Jinchai", "Jinchai Shihu" within the genus Dendrobium of the family Orchidaceae. Combined of different methods including study of historical records from the local chronicles and historical accounts of past event in Hubei, Sichuan, Chongqing, Henan and Shaanxi provinces, interviewing face to face with the old traditional Chinese workers and folk doctors in 20 downtowns and countrysides, such as, Laohekou, Lichuan, Fangxian, Xixia, Neixiang, and Ankang, and collecting a few plants of "Jinchai" for taxonomic identification. The traditional Chinese medicine names of "Jinchai", "Jinchai Shihu" were widely used by the local people from the eastern Chongqing, western Hubei, northeasten Sichuan, southeastern Shaanxi, western Henan. Those two names were frequently found in the local Chronicles and historical accounts of past event, even in the local daily life such as folk songs and stories. The botanical identification results showed that a endemic species of D. flexicaule is the original materials of the traditional Chinese medicine names "Jinchai" and "Jinchai Shihu", and this species are also called "Longtoujin", "Renzijin", "Huanzijin" and "Longtoufengweijin" by the local people. The dried artifactitious specimens of D. flexicaule are traditionally named as "Jinerhuan". The botanic resource plants of the traditional Chinese medicine names of "Jinchai", "Jinchai Shihu" are the endemic species of D. flexicaule that is distributed mainly in central areas of China including eastern Chongqing, western Hubei, northeasten Sichuan, southeastern Shaanxi, and western Henan, rather than D. nobile as referring in both Chinese and English version of Flora of China, and in official recorded serious versions of The Chinese Pharmacopoeia since 1977. In order to avoid confusion in the traditional Chinese medicine dendrobiums industry, the Chinese name of D. nobile is suggested as "Biancao Shihu", which characterized one stem feature of this species, and the traditional Chinese medicine names "Jinchai" or "JinchaiShihu" is suggested to refer to the species D. flexicaule.