Bai He
StarLilium brownii F.E.Brown var. viridulum Baker
Traditionally used for
- Cough & breathing
- Sleep
- Mood & calm
Cautions & contraindications
- Toxic — professional use only
☯ TCM Properties
Nourishes Lung Yin; Clears the Heart and calms the spirit; Stops Cough; Clears Heat
Traditional Chinese Uses
Bai He (lily bulb) is a cool, sweet, moistening herb used in Chinese medicine to nourish Lung and Heart Yin, clear mild Heart Heat, and calm the Spirit. It is used for dry, unproductive cough from Lung dryness and Yin deficiency, and for restlessness, insomnia, and mild emotional disturbance from Heart Yin deficiency. As a food-grade herb commonly eaten in soups and desserts, it is one of the gentlest and most pleasant-tasting Yin-nourishing herbs — appropriate for long-term daily use in those with dry, deficient constitutions.
Western Herbalism Properties
Relationships
Full-screen graph →Click a node for details · double-click to expand it · Ctrl/⌘ + scroll or two fingers to zoom and pan.
Botanical Description
Lilium brownii var. viridulum is a herbaceous perennial bulbous plant in the Liliaceae, native to central and southern China where it grows on grassy slopes, in scrub and on rocky cliffs. The white, fleshy, scaly bulb is ovoid to globose, 2 to 4.5 cm in diameter, composed of overlapping, lanceolate scales that are the medicinal portion known in Chinese medicine as Bai He. From the bulb arises an erect, unbranched stem reaching 0.7 to 2 meters in height, bearing scattered, linear-lanceolate, glabrous leaves 7 to 15 cm long. The flowers are solitary or in small terminal umbel-like clusters, large and showy, broadly funnel-form, 13 to 18 cm long, fragrant, with white tepals flushed purplish-brown or greenish on the outside and recurved at the tips. Six prominent stamens bear yellow-orange anthers around a long greenish style. Closely related varieties such as Lilium lancifolium and Lilium pumilum are also harvested as Bai He.
Active Constituents
Steroidal saponins (spirostanol, furostanol and isospirostanol glycosides; brownioside and deacylbrownioside among them)
Steroidal saponin glycosidesConcentration: the largest compound class found in the bulb by number: 41 of the 70 compounds identified in Lilium brownii var. viridulum bulbs by LC-MS profiling were steroidal saponins
The saponin fraction is what most of the antitumour, antidepressant and hypoglycaemic animal work on lily bulb is attributed to. Mimaki and Sashida first characterised the spirostanol and furostanol glycosides of L. brownii bulbs in 1990, and further steroidal saponins were reported from the var. viridulum bulb specifically in 2012. Note that most pharmacology is done on crude saponin extracts rather than single compounds, so potency figures for individual saponins are largely unavailable.
Regalosides (regalosides A, B, C, D and H)
Phenylpropanoid acylglycerol glycosidesConcentration: the characteristic phenolic pigment monomers of Lilium bulbs; regaloside B is used as the quantitative marker compound for Lilii Bulbus in Chinese quality-control work
These glycerol esters of ferulic and p-coumaric acid are the marker constituents that distinguish lily bulb from other white starchy bulbs, and they carry most of its measurable antioxidant activity. They are also the compounds that degrade during drying, which is why the potency of a batch depends heavily on postharvest processing.
1-O-feruloyl-2-O-p-coumaroylglycerol
Phenylpropenoid acylglycerolIsolated from the bulbs of Lilium brownii var. viridulum by bioassay-guided fractionation and the most potent anti-inflammatory compound found there, inhibiting nitric oxide production in LPS-stimulated RAW264.7 macrophages with an IC50 of 9.12 plus or minus 0.72 micromolar. It suppressed iNOS and COX-2 protein, TNF-alpha, IL-6 and IL-1beta, blocked nuclear translocation of NF-kappaB p65 and damped the MAPK pathway. This is in vitro cell work, not evidence of an anti-inflammatory effect at oral doses.
1,3-O-diferuloylglycerol
Phenylpropenoid acylglycerolThe companion compound from the same fractionation, slightly less potent, with an IC50 of 12.01 plus or minus 1.07 micromolar against nitric oxide production in the same macrophage assay.
Lily bulb polysaccharides (glucomannan-type water-soluble polysaccharides)
PolysaccharidesThe bulk non-starch carbohydrate of the bulb. Total lily bulb polysaccharide preparations are the fraction used in the immunomodulatory, anti-fatigue and ovariectomised-mouse behavioural studies. Composition and molecular weight vary substantially with species and growing region, so results obtained with one preparation do not transfer to another.
Alkaloids of the bulb (18 reported for the genus, three of them steroidal alkaloids)
AlkaloidsConcentration: 6 alkaloids detected among the 70 compounds profiled in Lilium brownii var. viridulum bulbs
A minor fraction quantitatively but the one that carries the genus's toxicological question. A 2024 review of the genus states that Lilium contains colchicine; no primary quantification of colchicine in Bai He could be located, so this claim should be treated as unresolved rather than as a known content figure. It matters because colchicine has a narrow margin, and because Lilium is Liliaceae while the established colchicine-bearing plants are Colchicaceae.
⚠ Drug Interactions
Barbiturates, benzodiazepines, sedating antihistamines and opioid analgesics
Western clinical TCM reference texts list Bai He as prolonging sleeping time induced by barbiturates, antihistamines, opioid analgesics and benzodiazepines. That statement is repeated widely but the primary rodent sleeping-time experiment behind it could not be traced to a citable publication, so it is recorded here as unverified. What is documented at animal and in vitro level is that lily bulb saponins have antidepressant-like activity, alter dopamine and serotonin turnover and modulate the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, which makes a central additive effect plausible in principle. There is no human pharmacokinetic or pharmacodynamic study.
Clinical note: No dose change is warranted on this evidence. Simply ask about daytime drowsiness when Bai He is used at the upper end of its 9-30 g range alongside a hypnotic, sedating antihistamine or opioid, particularly in older patients.
Colchicine and other tubulin-binding drugs
A 2024 review of Lilium as a nutraceutical states that Lilium contains colchicine and that this may produce toxic effects on long-term use, while also noting that no case of chronic Lilium poisoning has been reported and that chronic toxicity studies are urgently needed. No primary paper quantifying colchicine in Lilium brownii var. viridulum bulbs was found. The concern is therefore that the size of any colchicine load in Bai He is unknown, not that a documented additive toxicity exists.
Clinical note: Do not withhold Bai He on this basis. Do avoid open-ended high-dose use in a patient already on colchicine for gout or familial Mediterranean fever, where the therapeutic index is genuinely narrow, and prefer the culinary bulb from a food-grade supplier over unidentified bulk material.
Lilium lancifolium and Lilium pumilum bulbs (co-official Bai He sources)
Lilii Bulbus is a multi-source drug. The Chinese Pharmacopoeia accepts more than one Lilium species as Bai He, and Lilium lancifolium and Lilium davidii var. unicolor are the other bulbs in wide culinary and medicinal use in China. This is not a toxicity problem but an evidence-attribution one, and it changes what a monograph can honestly claim. To take the clearest example, the ovariectomised-mouse study of total lily bulb polysaccharide that is regularly quoted for Bai He used Lilium lancifolium Thunb., not L. brownii var. viridulum. Metabolomic comparison of fresh L. brownii var. viridulum against L. davidii var. unicolor shows the two differ measurably in composition.
Clinical note: When a supplier or a study says Bai He, ask which species. Only the anti-inflammatory acylglycerol work and the 2012 saponin chemistry cited in this record were done on L. brownii var. viridulum itself.
Dosage
| Form | Amount | Frequency | Duration | Population | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| decoction | 6–12 g | Daily | — | — | 中国药典 2020 【用法与用量】6～12g。 【性味与归经】甘，寒。归心、肺经。 — Chinese Pharmacopoeia 2020, quoted verbatim; route and cautions preserved. Replaces a cleared category-filler value. |
Dui Yao — Herb Pairs
The classical two-herb combinations this herb appears in, each with an action neither herb has alone.
Moistens the lungs and enriches yin while stopping cough, for chronic cough with blood-streaked sputum from yin deficiency.
Core pair of a classical formula — Bai Hua Gao, Ji Sheng Fang (Yan Yonghe)
Heart and lung yin are nourished while heat is cooled from the blood, calming the spirit.
Lily disease with restlessness and absent-mindedness.
Core pair of a classical formula — Bai He Di Huang Tang, Jin Gui Yao Lue (Zhang Zhongjing)
Yin is nourished and heat cleared, calming the spirit in lily disease after mistaken sweating.
Core pair of a classical formula — Bai He Zhi Mu Tang, Jin Gui Yao Lue (Zhang Zhongjing)
Evidence Tier
Moderate evidence · 3 studiesRecorded studies by study design, strongest design at the top. This is a study-design tier only, not a GRADE rating: it does not weigh risk of bias, consistency or precision.
Systematic review / meta-analysis
0
Randomized controlled trial
0
Other clinical trial
0
Observational / case report
0
In vitro / animal
3
2 verified · 1 unverified
Show 3 studies
- Bioassay-Guided Isolation of Anti-Inflammatory Components from the Bulbs of Lilium brownii var. viridulum and Identifying the Underlying Mechanism through Acting on the NF-κB/MAPKs Pathway
- Total Polysaccharides of Lily Bulb Ameliorate Menopause-Like Behavior in Ovariectomized Mice: Multiple Mechanisms Distinct from Estrogen Therapy
- Chemical Composition Analysis of Lilium brownii var. Viridulum Baker and the Effect of Postharvest Primary Processing on Its Quality
Other / unclassified
0
Verified: design read from PubMed for a DOI that resolves to the cited paper Unverified: taken from the study's recorded description
Clinical Studies
Bioassay-Guided Isolation of Anti-Inflammatory Components from the Bulbs of Lilium brownii var. viridulum and Identifying the Underlying Mechanism through Acting on the NF-κB/MAPKs Pathway
The only bioassay-guided isolation done on this exact taxon. Two phenylpropenoid acylglycerols were isolated from the bulbs: 1-O-feruloyl-2-O-p-coumaroylglycerol and 1,3-O-diferuloylglycerol. Both inhibited nitric oxide production in LPS-stimulated RAW264.7 macrophages, with IC50 values of 9.12 plus or minus 0.72 and 12.01 plus or minus 1.07 micromolar respectively. Both reduced prostaglandin E2, downregulated iNOS and COX-2, cut TNF-alpha, IL-6 and IL-1beta, inhibited nuclear translocation of NF-kappaB p65 and suppressed MAPK signalling. Cell culture only; no animal or human dosing.
Total Polysaccharides of Lily Bulb Ameliorate Menopause-Like Behavior in Ovariectomized Mice: Multiple Mechanisms Distinct from Estrogen Therapy
Important caveat first: the polysaccharide in this study came from Lilium lancifolium Thunb., a co-official source of Bai He but not the binomial of this record. Ovariectomised female C57BL/6N mice were additionally exposed to two weeks of chronic unpredictable mild stress, then given total lily bulb polysaccharide at 50, 100 or 200 mg/kg/day; the 100 mg/kg dose was then compared with estradiol 0.3 mg/kg/day with and without the oestrogen-receptor antagonist ICI 182,780. The polysaccharide and estradiol were comparably effective against anxiety-like, depression-like and cognitive measures. The polysaccharide showed higher affinity for ER-beta than ER-alpha, whereas estradiol bound both similarly, and it modulated mitochondrial oxidative stress without the epigenetic activity seen with estradiol. Animal model only.
Chemical Composition Analysis of Lilium brownii var. Viridulum Baker and the Effect of Postharvest Primary Processing on Its Quality
Compositional profiling of this taxon specifically. Seventy compounds were identified: 41 steroidal saponins, 22 phenolic compounds, 6 alkaloids and 1 flavonoid, with phenylpropanoid derivatives and steroidal saponins the most abundant classes. The study also tested how postharvest primary processing changes that profile, which is the practical point for practitioners: the phenolic marker content of Bai He is processing-dependent, so two batches of the same species can differ substantially.
Historical Texts
Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing
Han dynastyJin Kui Yao Lue
Han dynastyReferences
- Wang Yong-Fei; An Zi-Yi; Yuan Le-Qi; Wang Ting; Jin Wei-Lin. Lilium brownii/Baihe as Nutraceuticals: Insights into Its Composition and Therapeutic Properties . Pharmaceuticals (2024) [DOI]
- Zhou Jing; An Renfeng; Huang Xuefeng. Genus Lilium: A review on traditional uses, phytochemistry and pharmacology . Journal of Ethnopharmacology (2021) [DOI]
- Hong Xiao-Xiao; Luo Jian-Guang; Guo Chao; Kong Ling-Yi. New steroidal saponins from the bulbs of Lilium brownii var. viridulum . Carbohydrate Research (2012) [DOI]
- Mimaki Yoshihiro; Sashida Yutaka. Steroidal saponins from the bulbs of Lilium brownii . Phytochemistry (1990) [DOI]
This information is for educational purposes only and is not intended to replace professional medical advice. Always consult a qualified healthcare provider before using any herbal remedy, especially if you are pregnant, nursing, or taking medications.
📝 Notes
Public notes from the community and your own private notes on Bai He.
No notes yet.