Chuan Bei Mu

Fritillaria cirrhosa (Chuan Bei Mu, Sichuan fritillary) is a perennial bulbous herb in the Liliaceae family, growing 15 to 50 centimeters tall from a small ovoid white bulb 0.5 to 1.5 centimeters in diameter, composed of two fleshy scales enclosing a tiny central bud. The slender, unbranched stem is glabrous and bears whorled or opposite, narrowly linear to lanceolate leaves 4 to 12 centimeters long, the uppermost often modified into slender tendril-like tips (giving the specific epithet cirrhosa). A single nodding bell-shaped flower (sometimes two or three) terminates the stem in early summer, with six tepals about 3 to 5 centimeters long, pale yellow to greenish-yellow and conspicuously marked inside with purple or brown checkered tessellations characteristic of the genus. The fruit is an erect, six-angled capsule. The bulbs, the part used medicinally, are harvested in summer or autumn, freed from outer scales and roots, and dried. Native to high alpine meadows and rocky slopes of southwestern China, especially Sichuan, Yunnan, and Tibet.