Shui Ding Xiang
StarLudwigia prostrata Roxb.
Also known as: Shui Ting Hsiang · Wade–Giles
Safety at a glance
No rule in our tables for this herb: pregnancy, breastfeeding, incompatible pairs (十八反 / 十九畏), herb–drug, dose ceiling. This is not a safety clearance.
Not graded — No toxicity grade is recorded. Most herbs in the catalogue carry none.
Traditionally used for
- Nose & throat
- Teeth & mouth
- Bowel health
- Urinary & fluids
- Skin
Cautions & contraindications
- Pregnancy
- Young children
- Kidney conditions
☯ TCM Properties
Clears Heat and reduces inflammation and swelling; Promote urination
Traditional Chinese Uses
Shui Ding Xiang is the whole herb of Ludwigia prostrata (climbing seedbox), a semi-aquatic plant classed among the Dampness-transforming, heat-clearing medicinals. Sweet and bland in flavour and cold in nature, it enters the Kidney and Bladder channels. It clears Heat and reduces inflammation and swelling while promoting urination, and is chiefly used for damp-heat Lin syndrome (painful, difficult urination), chronic urinary-tract infection and edema. Its heat-clearing, detoxifying action is also applied to sore, swollen throat, dysentery, toothache, and itchy, red, swollen skin conditions. It is commonly decocted (often 15–30 g of fresh or dried herb) and may be combined with other heat-clearing, diuretic herbs in formulas for dysuria.
Western Herbalism Properties
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Botanical Description
Shui Ding Xiang is the whole herb of Ludwigia prostrata (Onagraceae), an erect or ascending annual marsh herb of wet lowland habitats across East and South Asia. The reddish, often four-angled stems reach 15-60 cm and may root at the lower nodes. Leaves are alternate, lanceolate to narrowly elliptic, 3-9 cm long, glabrous, tapering at both ends. The small flowers are solitary and sessile in the leaf axils, bearing four tiny yellow petals, four sepals and an inferior ovary. The fruit is a slender, reddish, four-angled capsule 1.5-3 cm long that splits to release numerous minute seeds. The dried whole plant is used to clear heat, promote urination, reduce swelling and check dysentery.
Wet places at low elevations — ditches, paddy-field margins, marshes, pond edges and slow streambanks.
⚠ Drug Interactions
Ludwigia octovalvis (Shui Ding Xiang, Mao Cao Long)
The pinyin name and the binomial on this record disagree. Shui Ding Xiang is the established Chinese name of Ludwigia octovalvis, which also carries the names Mao Cao Long, Shui Xiang Jiao and Huang Hua Shui Ding Xiang. Ludwigia prostrata Roxb. is Ding Xiang Liao. The two are distinguished in the field by practitioners who use both: in an ethnomedicinal survey of Zhuang communities in Jingxi, Guangxi, Ludwigia octovalvis was recorded as the root, decocted for hepatitis, while Ludwigia prostrata was recorded as the aerial part, decocted for mouth ulcers. They are different drugs from different plant parts with different uses. Ludwigia octovalvis also has a modest published pharmacology, including animal work on lipid and body-weight endpoints and on wound healing, none of which belongs to Ludwigia prostrata.
Clinical note: Establish which plant is meant before dispensing anything labelled Shui Ding Xiang. If the intended drug is the one described in this record, order Ludwigia prostrata Roxb., aerial part. Do not carry any Ludwigia octovalvis evidence, dose or indication across to it.
Copper, lead and zinc from contaminated collection sites
Ludwigia prostrata is a paddy-field and wetland weed, and it concentrates metals. Among dominant weeds sampled at the Dabaoshan mine in Guangdong it had the highest accumulation potential of any species examined, reaching 71.58 mg/kg copper, 130.76 mg/kg lead and 454.72 mg/kg zinc, with a zinc translocation factor of 2.04 — meaning it moves zinc preferentially into the shoots, which is the part used as the drug. It has separately been used as the matrix for a near-infrared method for measuring copper and zinc pollutants. The plant grows in exactly the irrigated, run-off-fed habitats where agricultural and mining contamination collects.
Clinical note: Do not use wild-collected material of unknown provenance, and do not collect from paddy margins near mining or industrial land. Where the herb is used at all, require heavy metal testing on the batch, and avoid it in children, in pregnancy and in patients with impaired renal function.
Dosage Calculator
⚖ Dosage Calculator
A weight-based mathematical estimate for Shui Ding Xiang. Not a prescription.
Evidence Tier
1 study on recordRecorded 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
1
0 verified · 1 unverified
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
Antitumour activity of root extract of Ludwigia Prostrata Roxb. Against Dalton's Ascitic Lymphoma
The only pharmacological study located for this species. It reports antitumour activity of a root extract in the Dalton's ascitic lymphoma mouse model. No abstract is indexed and the article is not registered with a DOI, so the doses, controls and effect sizes could not be verified; the record here is the title and citation only. Note also that the material tested was the root, whereas the drug described by this monograph is the aerial part.
References
- Chen L, Liu Y, Fan X, Hu R, Qi S, Liu H, Liu Y. Ethnomedicinal value of karst paddy weeds: insights from Zhuang communities in Jingxi, China . Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine (2025) [DOI]
- Wang J, Xiong Y, Zhang J, Lu X, Wei G. Naturally selected dominant weeds as heavy metal accumulators and excluders assisted by rhizosphere bacteria in a mining area . Chemosphere (2020) [DOI]
- Ouyang A, Jiang L, Liu Y, Jiang L, Hao Y, He B. Determination of Copper and Zinc Pollutants in Ludwigia prostrata Roxb Using Near-Infrared Reflectance Spectroscopy (NIRS) . Applied Spectroscopy (2015) [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.
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