The astragalus root grows straight down: dig in and there is often one unbranching root all the way to the bottom, few side roots, pale yellow in color, tough in texture, powdery when snapped.

One Straight Root to the Soil’s Bottom

The astragalus root grows straight down, one to the bottom, up to a meter long, hard work to dig. The center of the cross-section is whitish, with faint radiating striations toward the edge—the so-called “chrysanthemum heart”—and up close there is a faint beany smell.

In the pharmacy drawer it is most often sliced on the slant: pale yellow, soft, a handful at a time, looking like wood shavings—yet it is the most commonly used qi-tonifying herb.

— Botany Notes, self-inscription —

A straight root threads one line through the loess,

and in the medicine it is called the elder, its qi growing long.

An Important Figure among Qi Tonics

Astragalus tonifies qi and raises the yang, secures the exterior and stops sweating—the lead herb in formulas for qi deficiency. The name of Yupingfeng Powder says it plainly: the layer of qi it builds is the barrier standing at the body’s surface.

Its most famous pairing is with angelica in Danggui Buxue Tang: the astragalus is used in large dose on the principle that qi generates blood. Chinese medicine works this way—the relations between herbs repay more study than any single herb’s effects.

Two Sources

The medicinal astragalus comes chiefly from the legumes Astragalus mongholicus and Astragalus membranaceus. The two look alike: erect stems, pinnate leaves, small clusters of yellowish-white flowers—in bloom, a whole plant like a string of little bells.

A warning is due: folk practice often calls quite different plants “huangqi” too, and the names blur. Materia medica demands an exact source; use the wrong species and it is not that qi you are tonifying.

• How to know it: Perennial legume; stems erect; pinnate leaves with many leaflets; yellowish-white flowers in racemes; the long straight root is the medicinal part.
• Season: Flowers June to July, fruits July to September; roots are dug in late autumn after three to four years.
• Caution: A qi tonic to be used by differentiation; those with external cold and fever or excess-heat patterns should not take it on their own—follow a physician.

A Long Root in Sandy Loam

Astragalus likes cool dry air and full light, and does best in deep, loose sandy loam—because the root must grow long, shallow soil will not let it run straight. Cultivated plants are dug after three years or more, with underground pests and waterlogging to be guarded against all the while.

It tolerates drought and cold, and like licorice is often grown at the windy, sandy margins of the north. The root in the soil, the seedlings above ground—one layer of green covering one layer of earth: a medicinal plant also keeps a skin over the land.

◆ ◆ ◆

Keywords: astragalus · qi tonic · Chinese medicine · the north