Typha angustifolia L. (pollen; also Typha orientalis Presl)
Nature and flavour. Sweet, neutral; Liver and Pericardium systems.
Classed as stopping bleeding, as transforming stasis, and as promoting urination and relieving strangury. It is the haemostatic that does not cool: within a group dominated by cold herbs it is neutral, and that is what makes it the one the tradition reaches for when it does not read the bleeding as heat. Its other distinguishing feature is that it both stops bleeding and moves blood, which sounds like a contradiction and is the point — the classical descriptions are of painful bleeding and of lochia that has not settled, where stasis and bleeding are understood to be present at once. The raw pollen and the charred pollen, 蒲黄炭, are not treated as the same material in practice.
性味归经。甘，平；归肝、心包经。
归类为止血、化瘀、利尿通淋。它是止血药中不寒的一味：在一组以寒凉为主的药材中它性平，这正是传统在不把出血判为热证时选用它的原因。它另一个特点是既止血又化瘀，看似相反而正是其要义 —— 古典描述为疼痛性的出血与产后恶露不尽，此时瘀与出血被认为同时存在。生蒲黄与蒲黄炭在实际应用中不作同一物对待。
它是花粉类药材，花粉可引起过敏反应，且可以发生在从未有过花粉症的人身上 —— 这一风险与传统归类无关。其化瘀的一面正是传统文献在孕期对它持谨慎态度的原因。妊娠期与哺乳期的人体安全性数据不足。不得自行使用：原因未明的出血、孕期出血，以及量多或持续不止的出血，都应当先作医学评估。
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