Elm Fruit Paste wú yí · 芜荑

Ulmi Macrocarpae Fructus praeparata (Ulmus macrocarpa Hance — the processed fruit)

Nature and flavour. Acrid, bitter, warm. Spleen and Stomach systems.

A processed elm fruit: the samara of the large-fruited elm, gathered and prepared into a paste or cake. Traditional texts describe it as killing parasites and reducing accumulation, and it is best known for the traditional childhood pattern called 疳积 — the wasting and abdominal distension that classical medicine attributed to worm accumulation and faulty feeding. It is an old item, recorded in the earliest extant materia medica, and it has largely fallen out of contemporary practice. Its traditional indications are recorded rather than established.