Feng Yen Cao

Feng Yen Cao (风眼草), "phoenix-eye herb," is most commonly identified in southern Chinese folk medicine as Hydrocotyle sibthorpioides Lam. (Apiaceae, lawn pennywort), a small creeping perennial of damp lawns, ditches, and stream banks across subtropical Asia. The plant produces slender, threadlike, rooting stems hugging the soil and bearing small, rounded to kidney-shaped, glossy green leaves 0.5–2 cm across with shallowly lobed margins, the namesake "phoenix eyes." Minute greenish to whitish flowers are borne in tiny simple umbels on short axillary stalks. The whole plant is collected throughout the warm months and used fresh or dried for damp-heat patterns, jaundice, urinary stones, and inflammatory skin lesions. The species ascription should be confirmed against the source record because the folk name is applied loosely in some regions.