What it is:
This herb is thewhole plant of Sela-ginellae Doederleinii(family Selaginella-ceae) , which is distributed in most provinces south of the Yangtze River. It is collected in late autumn and dried in sunlight or used fresh.

Property:
Sweet and lightly astirgent inflavour, cool in property.

Effects:
Subduingswelling, detoxicating,inducing anticarcinogenic, expelling windand coldness torelievecough.

Used for:
1. Various tumourssuch as chorioepithe-lioma and cancers ofthe lung,liver,naso-pharynx, larynx and digestive tract.
(1)For fire caused by depression of liverqi and excessive noxious heat in hepatocarcinoma, it is used with chonglou,lizardtail, stringystonecrip, etc.
(2)Retention of noxiousheat in the lung and over abundance of phlegm- heat in lung carcinoma, it is used in accompany with dandelion, scutellaria root andchonglou.
(3) Upward-ness of depressed fire, adhesion of phlegm-fire and over abundance of noxiousheat in chorioepithe-lioma and laryngeal carcinoma, it is used together with create, scrophulariaroot, honeysuckle flower, Asian puccoonroot, sun-plant, etc.
(4) For nasopharyngeal carcinoma, it is often used with subprostrate sophora,sun-plant and olden-landia. The herb is effective for smallcarinona and car-cinoma sensitive to chemotherapy and radiotherapy and small carcinoma. It has synergistic action with chemo-therapy and radiotherapy.

2. Upper respira-tory tract infection,pneumonia and hepato-cirrhosis.

Dosage and admi-nistration: 15- 30g of dried plant or 25-50g of fresh plant, decocted in water for an oral dose. Tablet or injection can be made of the herb extract.

Precautions:
It is not advisable to be decocted for an short time.