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Sweet, cold. Wash clean, dry in the sun; stir-fry before use in decoctions; soak in wine for one night, steam until cooked, grind into a paste to form cakes, then dry for use in pills and powders. Changshan (Dichroa Radix) is used as its guiding herb.

Bitter, slightly cold. Harvest the seedlings and leaves in July and August, and dry in the shade. It can suppress cinnabar and realgar.

Acrid, cold. Leaves grow in spring and summer; harvest at any time.
According to *Min Shu*: It is highly effective in treating dysentery. The *Bencao* states it is Verbena officinalis, which is incorrect.

Bitter, slightly cold. Harvest at any time. Grows in damp, low-lying areas; each stem has five or seven leaves and bears yellow flowers. This is completely different from *Perilla frutescens* var. *acuta* (Zibei Longya); people now call it Male Strawberry (Xiong Shemei).

Bitter, cold.

Sour, warm.

Salty, sweet, cold. It is the essence of foreign Indigofera tinctoria (Lan Dian). Indigo from Persia is no longer available; currently, dried indigo cake is used. Sellers often substitute it with dried indigo sediment, but this contains much calcined stone and should not be used lightly. It must be washed several times, taking only the floating part, or replaced with juice extracted from blue cloth.

Sweet, bitter, slightly warm. Scrape off the outer skin before use.

Bitter, acrid, sweet, warm. Pick clean, stir-fry to remove spines. Aconitum carmichaelii (Wutou) is used as its guiding herb.

Sweet, warm. Green ones that taste like mung beans when chewed are of good quality. Produced in the Ma pasture grasslands of Tongzhou, hence called Shayuan Tribulus (Shayuan Jili). Its foliage resembles Du Jili, and its seeds are granular, brownish-green, hence also called Black Jili.
(Note: The text here seems inappropriate, suspected to be a character error.)

Sweet and astringent, harvest seedlings in April and May, dry in the shade.

Bitter, acrid, cold.
Viola yedoensis (Zihua Diding) is commonly known as Xumili or Qianju Cao. Its flowers come in various colors; one variety growing by ditches tends to creep.

Bitter, warm. One root cluster has hundreds of fibrous roots, some up to two chi long. Initially yellow-black, turning deep black when dry, called Iron-foot Clematis (Tieji Weilingxian). If the color is yellow or white, it should not be used. Avoid tea and wheat bran soup.
Weilingxian, now named Jiugai Cao, refers to this species. Many people mistake Xu Changqing and Xianren Cao for Weilingxian, which is incorrect. Xianren Cao is toxic.

Bitter, slightly cold. Harvest in June.

Bitter, cold. When used, there are raw, cooked, and steamed forms; they cannot be used indiscriminately. For downward action, use raw; for pathogenic factors in the upper body, soak in wine to guide the medicine upward and drive heat downward. Wine-soaked enters the Taiyang channel; wine-washed enters the Yangming channel; other channels do not use it. Huangqin processed with wine is used as its guiding herb. It is incompatible with Dried Lacquer (Ganqi) and avoids cold water. In the market, there are sliced pieces and perforated pieces, both cleaned. Sliced pieces are moist and hard; perforated pieces are light, dry, and not solid. At harvest, they are all roasted with fire stones and sold as dry goods; there are no fresh ones left. Use does not require extensive processing, steaming, or boiling. Currently, it is produced in Taihe, Shancheng, Danhou, and other prefectures. Those with purple brocade patterns are preferred, but they are often counterfeited with the roots of *Rumex japonicus* (Yangti), so careful identification is necessary.