What it is:
This herb is thecapitulum of Inulajaponica Thunb., or Inula britannica I.(family Compositae), produced mainly in Guangdong Province and Inner Mongolia dried in sunlight after collection, and is used unprepared or stir-baked with honey.

Property:
Bitter, pungent and salty in flavour,slightly warm inproperty, acting onthe lung, spleen,stomach and largeintestine channels.

Effects:
Eliminiting phlegm,promoting diuresis, and lowering theadverse flow of qi to stop vomiting.

Used for:
1. For the feeling of stuffiness andfullness in the chest and cough with dyspnea and profuse sputum dueto retention of phlegm and fluid in the interior, it is often used with platycodon root and mulberry bark, as in Decoction of Inula Flower(Xuanfuhua Tang). Incases of cough, dyspnea and profusesputum due to affection by coldexopathogens, it isused with asarum and pinellia tuber, as in Inula Powder(Jinfeicao San).

2. For epigastric fullness, omiting andeructation due todeficiency of both the spleen-qi and stomach- qi and adverse rising of phlegm-dampness, itis often used with red ochre and pinellia, as in Decoction of Inulaand Red Ochre (Xuanfu Daizhe Tang).

Dosage and admi-nistration: 3-10g, wrapped in a piece of cloth and decocted in water for an oral dose.