Hai Xing

Hai Xing refers to the dried bodies of starfish in the genus Asterias and related members of the class Asteroidea, and is therefore an animal- rather than plant-derived substance. The body is a flattened five-rayed star typically 10 to 25 centimetres across, with a central disc bearing the mouth on the underside and the madreporite (water-vascular intake) on the upper surface. Each arm carries a longitudinal groove on its undersurface lined with hundreds of small tube feet used for locomotion and prey capture, and the dorsal surface is sheathed in a leathery skin reinforced by small calcareous ossicles and bearing scattered pedicellariae. Source species are collected from rocky and sandy substrates of the coastal seas of China, then washed, sun-dried, and stored for medicinal use.