Ban Zhi Lian

Scutellaria barbata, barbed skullcap, is a slender erect perennial herb of the family Lamiaceae native to moist grasslands, paddy margins and streamsides throughout central, southern and eastern China, Korea, Japan and parts of Southeast Asia. It produces a short, fibrous-rooted rhizome and quadrangular, sparsely pubescent stems 15-55 cm tall, branched from the base. The opposite, short-petiolate, triangular-ovate to lanceolate leaves are 1.5-3 cm long with shallowly crenate margins and a truncate to broadly cuneate base. Small bilabiate flowers 1-1.5 cm long are borne singly in the upper leaf axils, arranged in unilateral leafy racemes; the corolla is bluish-purple with the characteristic Scutellaria-typical scutellum (shield-like outgrowth) on the upper calyx lip, which enlarges and persists in fruit. The four small ovoid nutlets mature within the closed lower calyx lip. The whole flowering herb with root is harvested in summer.