Guang Jin Qian Cao

Desmodium styracifolium is a perennial subshrubby herb of the Fabaceae, native to the warm hills, grassy slopes, and forest margins of southern China (notably Guangdong, Guangxi, Yunnan, Hainan) and adjacent Southeast Asia. It grows 30–100 cm tall, the slender, ascending stems clothed in soft rusty-yellow hairs. The alternate leaves are usually unifoliolate (occasionally trifoliolate on vigorous shoots), the rounded to broadly elliptic leaflet 2–4 cm across, with a silvery-silky underside that gives a coin-like flash — the source of the name 'gold-coin herb'. Small purple papilionate flowers are borne in compact terminal and axillary racemes through summer, followed by short, several-jointed flat loments hooked with fine hairs. The entire above-ground plant is gathered in summer or autumn, washed, and dried. The species is distinct from Lysimachia christinae (the 'standard' Jin Qian Cao).