Ji Xing Zi

Ji Xing Zi, also called Ji Xing Zi or Ji Xin Zi (garden balsam seed), is the ripe seed of Impatiens balsamina L. (Balsaminaceae), an erect succulent annual 30 to 80 cm tall native to India and Southeast Asia and long cultivated throughout China as both ornamental and medicinal. The plant bears alternate lanceolate serrate leaves and showy axillary spurred flowers in pink, red, purple, or white; the explosive capsule dehisces at the slightest touch, scattering small kidney-shaped dark brown seeds about 2 mm across. In traditional Chinese medicine the seed is acrid, bitter, warm, and slightly toxic, entering the Lung and Liver channels; it softens hardness, breaks blood stasis, and unblocks the channels, used for amenorrhea due to blood stasis, difficult labor, retained placenta, abdominal masses, and lodged fish-bone in the throat. The flower Feng Xian Hua and stem Tou Gu Cao are separate medicinals.