Identify first
Use plant images, the English name, Latin name, and medicinal part to confirm the subject.
Study index
Herb Categories
Browse traditional groupings and compare the entries within each one.
What these categories mean
These categories organize traditional functional descriptions for study. They are not fixed prescriptions. Start with a grouping, then open individual entries to compare nature, flavor, medicinal part, processing context, and safety boundaries.
Reviewed by Kuda, September 2, 2026 - Editorial policy
Compare within the group
Look for differences in temperature, dryness, movement, preparation, and traditional context.
Return to the entry
Read the safety review and uncertainty notes before treating a category as useful information.
Astringent
This grouping contains astringent records used in different traditional contexts, including sweating, diarrhea, essence, or bleeding. The specific direction matters.
4 herbs
Blood Activating
This grouping is used to compare traditional blood-movement records. Some entries are discussed for pain, menstruation, trauma, or circulation, but those contexts are not interchangeable.
10 herbs
Blood Tonifying
This grouping collects traditional records discussed in relation to blood nourishment. Richness, warmth, movement, and digestive tolerance vary substantially between entries.
6 herbs
Exterior Releasing
This grouping concerns traditional exterior patterns. Warm, cool, dispersing, and dampness-related records have different boundaries and should not be collapsed into “cold remedies.”
6 herbs
Heat Clearing
This grouping covers several traditional heat-related pathways, including clearing, cooling blood, resolving toxicity, drying dampness, and draining fire.
14 herbs
Interior Warming
This grouping covers traditionally interior-warming records. Strength, dryness, toxicity, processing, and the risk of aggravating heat must be reviewed separately.
4 herbs
Liver Pacifying
This grouping is read through traditional liver-yang, liver-wind, and liver-fire descriptions. Similar symptoms can have very different causes.
3 herbs
Mind Calming
This grouping contains records discussed in traditional contexts of restlessness, sleep, the heart, or the spirit. It does not identify the cause of insomnia or anxiety.
2 herbs
Phlegm Transforming
This grouping includes traditional phlegm-transforming records with different warming, cooling, drying, moistening, and dispersing directions.
11 herbs
Purgative
This grouping includes traditional purgative pathways with very different strengths, from moistening to attacking accumulation or draining water.
2 herbs
Qi Regulating
This grouping collects traditional records used to discuss movement and regulation of qi. Liver, stomach, spleen, and downward-moving contexts may differ.
5 herbs
Qi Tonifying
This grouping is used to compare traditional discussions of low functional energy, fatigue, and reduced resilience. The entries differ in strength, warmth, dryness, and intended context.
7 herbs
Vision Improving
This grouping is a study index for traditional eye-related descriptions, including liver nourishment, wind-heat, redness, and visual obstruction.
4 herbs
Water Draining
This grouping is organized around traditional descriptions of promoting urination or draining dampness. It does not establish the cause of edema or urinary change.
6 herbs
Yang Tonifying
This grouping contains traditionally warming and yang-supporting records. Warming intensity and the risk of aggravating heat, dryness, bleeding, or insomnia are important distinctions.
7 herbs
Yin Tonifying
This grouping is read through traditional descriptions of depleted fluids or yin. Some entries emphasize the lungs, stomach, heart, or kidneys and should not be treated as interchangeable.
7 herbs