Lycium barbarum- Chinese herbs and Chinese herbal remedies for health

The Common wolfberry or Barbary Wolfberry (Lycium barbarum) is a shrub of the Solanaceae family (such as tomatoes), widespread in southern Europe to Asia.

The lyciets who were known in ancient pharmacopoeia of the Greco-Latin world were forgotten and it is only a result of China’s development since the late 1990s they were returned under the trade name “bays goji. “

The Common wolfberry is one of two species Lycium giving red fruits on sale in health food stores as the goji berry (Lycium chinense being the other). This is the richest of the two vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. The very famous in Asia fruits for their antioxidant properties are registered in the Chinese pharmacopoeia.

The term goji was manufactured by a North American ethno-botanist, named Bradley Dobos, passionate about Tibetan medicine. In 1973, at a gathering medicinal plants in the Tibetan mountains, he decided, with his Tibetan informant, to end the imbroglio local name qoiki, quak qou, kew ji forging the term goji. The word began to spread after the 1980s thanks to sales of its berries in a pharmacy and a clinic Tenzing Momo it opened in Seattle. But the worldwide success came only when the big producers Wolfberry Ningxia (China) decided to conquer global markets by making sometimes extravagant promoting the benefits of goji berries.

The Chinese wolfberry is the common name ningxia gouqi 宁夏 枸杞 morphologically “Wolfberry Ningxia” (northwestern province of China).

Description

The common Wolfberry is a shrub from 80 cm to 3 m high, very branching, flexuous to branches, hanging, a little prickly.

Solitary fibrous or leaves are lance-shaped or long elliptic, 2-3 cm long and 36 mm wide.

The flower carried by a stalk has a campanulate calyx 4-5 mm, usually 2 lobes and a purple corolla with tube 8-10 mm and shorter lobes. Stamens and style slightly exserted. Flowering lasts from June to September.

The fruit is a more or less orange-red berry, oblong, developing sweet flavor slightly bitter. They ripen from August to October.

Lycium barbarum grows in the cracks of the chalk cliffs of the Gironde, right bank

The Common wolfberry is widespread in the southern and central Europe, northern Africa and southwest Asia and Central Asia. In China, there are seven different species of Lycium: Lycium chinense is the most widely used (all of China except Tibet) while the Lycium barbarum barbarum var only grows in Ningxia, Gansu, northern Hebei, Inner Mongolia, Qinghai , northern Shanxi, Sichuan and Xinjiang. In these parts of the northwest, it is also found Lycium ruthenicum, and L. truncatum. In Tibet itself (Xizang zizhiqu), we find that L. ruthenicum.

Indeed, the species name refers barbarum North Africa, called the time of Linnaeus, prickly.

The Common wolfberry is grown for its edible berries over large areas in China (mainly in Ningxia) for the Chinese market but also increasingly for export to North America and Europe.

Introduced in the UK in 1730 by the Duke of Argyll, it is still used for hedges. It is also used for this purpose in North America and Australia.

Lycium barbarum

Leaves brown mustard (Brassica juncea) and goji berries braised Cantonese way

China has a long tradition of use of functional foods to restore the fundamental balances that regulate the flow of qi in the body (defined as part of traditional Chinese medicine).

To “strengthen the qi and nourish the liver and kidneys,” it is advisable to consume the wolfberry fruit in soups, boiled with rice or in dishes of vegetables and chicken. It can also be brewed with tea or chrysanthemum flowers. As “tonic” is also a goji liqueur, obtained by macerating goji fruit and ginseng a fortnight in the white liquor.

Recipe soup of shrimp wolfberry:

Ingredients: shrimp, goji berries, onions, ginger and seasonings. Sauté in a little oil with chopped onion and pour the goji berries and boiling water, finally add the shrimp. When the soup begins to boil add the seasoning, remove scum. Before serving scatter of tiny chopped chives.

Medicinal uses

Wolfberry is a known medicinal plant and used for two thousand years in China. Only the fruit of Lycium barbarum is recognized as pharmacies. The distinction on morphological or histological bases fruit of L. barbarum and L. chinense is very difficult, better to use techniques of molecular analysis for a reliable assessment (such as RAPD).

In Chinese medicine, the dried fruit is known:

tone the kidney and essence (jing)

nourish the liver and improve eyesight

Chinese herbal remedy image source:http://www.cnwesthotline.com/west01/gp00.htm

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