Japanese Thistle (Cirsium Herb) dà jì · 大蓟

Cirsium japonicum DC. (aerial parts or root)

Nature and flavour. Sweet and bitter, cool; Heart and Liver systems.

Classed as cooling the blood and stopping bleeding, and as dispersing stasis, resolving toxin and dispersing swelling. Within the haemostatic group it is one of the two thistles — 大蓟 and 小蓟 — that the tradition pairs and then distinguishes. Both are cool and both are recorded for bleeding read as heat in the blood, but 大蓟 is the one whose profile turns outward to sores and swellings: the classical sources record it for boils and abscesses in their early stages, taken and applied. Where 小蓟 is described as also promoting urination and is the one chosen for blood in the urine, 大蓟 is the one whose dispersing action is described as going to the surface.