Preliminary analysis on morphological characteristics of traditional Chinese medicines in hot property / 中国中药杂志

ABSTRACT

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To study morphological features of traditional Chinese medicinal herbs in hot property.</p><p><b>METHOD</b>Altogether 114 traditional Chinese medicinal herbs in hot property were selected as study objects. EpiData 3.02 software was applied to establish a database, and SPSS 18.0 statistical software was used for data analysis.</p><p><b>RESULT</b>In terms of shape, there were 25 cylindrical herbs, accounting for 21.9%, which was the largest proportion; 12 flaky herbs, taking up 10.5%; 11 sphere herbs, occupying 9.6%; 9 ovate and massive herbs, respectively, accounting for 7.9%; 8 oval herbs, taking up 7.0%; and the rest herbs were distributed dispersedly. By color, there were red cases, accounting for 39.5%, which was the largest proportion; 29 yellow cases, accounting for 25.4%; 16 black cases, accounting for 14.1%; 15 green cases, accounting for 13.2%; and 9 white cases, accounting for 8.9%. By odor, there were 62 cases with aroma (including slight aroma), accounting for 54.4%; 28 cases with slight odor, accounting for 24.6%; 13 cases without odor, accounting for 11.4%; 7 cases with specific odor, taking up 6.1%; 4 fishy cases, taking up 3.5%. By taste, there were 36 cases in pungent taste (including slight pungent), occuping 31.6%; 35 cases in bitter taste (including slight bitter), taking up 30.7%; 19 sweet cases (including slight sweet), occuping 16.6%; 5 salt cases (including slight salt), occuping 4.5%; 4 sour cases (including slight sour), occuping 3.5%; 11 cases in flat taste, occuping 9.6%; 3 astringent cases, occupying 2.6%; and 1 numb-taste case, occuping 0.9%. In terms of texture, hard herbs (including hard and solid ones) occupied 39.4%; crisp herbs occupied 24.6%; light-weigh herbs occupied 12.3%; heavy-weigh herbs occupied 3.5%; loose herbs occupied 2.6%; and tough herbs occupied 5.3%.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>The morphologic characteristics of traditional Chinese medicines in hot property show certain regularity. They are mostly cylindrical, red, pungent and hard, with aroma.</p>