Pharmaceutical Name:

Fructus Forsythiae

Botanical Name:

Forsythia suspense (Thunb.) Vahl

Common Name:

Forsythia fruit

Source of Earliest Record:

Shennong Bencao Jing

Part Used & Method for Pharmaceutical Preparations:

The green fruit gathered in the period of White Dew (fifteenth solar term) is better than the yellow fruit picked in the period of Cold Dew (seventeenth solar term).  The fruit is steamed, dried in the sun, and its seeds separated from the flesh.

Properties and Taste:

Bitter and slightly cold

Meridian:

Heart, lung and gall bladder

Functions:

To clear heat and release toxins
To relieve carbuncles and disperse nodules

Indications and Combinations:

1.     Febrile disease:

a)       Exogenous pathogenic heat at the defensive qi level manifested as headache, fever, thirst and sore throat.
*Use with Arctium fruit (Niubangzi) and Mentha (Bohe).

b)       Exogenous pathogenic heat entering the pericardium manifested as high fever, irritability and loss of consciousness.
*Use with Rhinoceros horn (Xijiao) and Lotus seed (Lianzi).

2.      Boils, carbuncles and furuncles.
*Use with Wild chrysanthemum flower (Yejuhua) and Honeysuckle flower (Jinyinhua).

3.     Scrofula.
*Use with Prunella spike (Xiakucao), Scrophularia (Xuanshen) and Tendrilled fritillary bulb (Chuanbeimu).

Dosage:

6-10 g

Cautions:

This herb is contraindicated during heat in the blood due to deficient yin, diarrhea due to weakness of the spleen.