Ji Gu Cao

Abrus cantoniensis Hance is a slender, trailing or weakly climbing perennial subshrub in the Fabaceae, native to southern China (Guangdong, Guangxi), Hong Kong, and parts of Indochina, where it grows on dry hillsides and at forest margins. Stems are slender, woody at the base and herbaceous above, 0.5-1.5 m long, sparsely appressed-pubescent. Leaves are alternate and pinnately compound with 8-12 pairs of small oblong leaflets 5-15 mm long, glabrous above and finely hairy beneath. Small purple to pinkish papilionaceous flowers appear in short axillary racemes, followed by flattened, oblong, finely pubescent pods containing brown to greyish ovoid seeds. The whole above-ground plant, with or without root, is harvested in summer and autumn and sun-dried.