Sanqi (pseudo-ginseng), also named
Tianqi, is the most precious natural herb in Chinese medicine. Produced in the
southeast of Yunnan Province in Southeast China, it has been used for hundreds
of years to improve the overall health of human body by adjusting the internal
balance.
Sanqi needs to live in a climate with warm
winters and cool summers, little strong sunshine, soft and infiltrative soil,
and expedite drainage system as well.
By Chinese standards, Sanqi is not an
ancient herb, being first described only about 400 years ago, in Li Shizhen's
Compendium of Materia Medica (c. 1590). It is cultivated mainly in
southern China, in the provinces of Yunnan, Guangxi, and Guangdong. Sanqi is
closely related to Asian ginseng and American ginseng. Like ginseng, it also
contains ginsenosides as its major active components. However, unlike ginseng,
Sanqi's most well-known traditional use is not as a tonic but as a hemostatic,
and is a common ingredient in many hemostatic formulas both for internal and
external applications. The most famous formula of this kind is Yunnan Baoyao
(Yunnan White Drug-Powder), which uses Sanqi as a major component. Because of
its hemostatic function, Sanqi is the most common medicine in armies.
In addition, Sanqi has obvious curative
effect on cardiovascular, immunomodulating and anti-inflammatory diseases, and
helps normalize blood lipids and blood pressure, etc., as well. It is now also
used in tonic formulas.