Dan Zhu Ye

Lophatherum gracile is a slender, tufted perennial grass in the Poaceae, native to East and Southeast Asia where it grows in the understorey of broadleaf forests, shaded slopes and roadside thickets from southern China and Japan to the Indian subcontinent. The plant forms loose clumps from a short rhizome that bears tuberous, fusiform root swellings, the latter forming part of the related medicinal Dan Zhu Ye Gen. Erect, slender, hollow culms reach 40 to 100 cm in height, bearing alternate, lanceolate to broadly lanceolate leaf blades 5 to 20 cm long and 1.5 to 3 cm wide, with prominent parallel veins, finely tapered apices and short petiole-like constrictions at the base, all glabrous and bright green. The inflorescence is a slender, open panicle 10 to 30 cm long bearing few, distantly spaced spikelets along the branches. Each spikelet is narrowly lanceolate, with conspicuous awn-tipped sterile lemmas. The dried leafy aerial parts gathered before flowering constitute Dan Zhu Ye.