Leonurus sibiricus

Pictures borrowed from Google Images

It is still fresh in my mind and it was just like yesterday that my mum or any of my aunts gave birth to my siblings and cousin and there would be my grandpa (God rest his soul), nursing them. My grandpa was Chinese and he was a walking Chinese "Book of Medicine". Something my mum and aunt regret was not to take notes of all his remedies. My grandparents was not rich but hardworking and hospital or medicine was a luxury in those days. But, due to my grandpa knowledge of Chinese herbal medicine flu was like a walk in the park, i guess. I remember he would give a kind of Chinese herb with a cockroach head for our fever. When you're small, you'll eat anything. Now thinking back about it, urhgg but hey, it works. Still, i would prefer just panadol.

So, one of the herbs is Leonurus sibiricus or the Fu Chow would call it Kaciam Ma. Leaves were dried, and then cook with chicken, lots of old ginger and Chinese rice wine for mums  just after they have given birth. The ginger and Chinese rice wine will give you heat but not sure of the Kaciam Ma. Some says for fast healing. So, mums have to eat just that with rice for 40 days.

Botanically, the roots of this plant release exudate with have an active compound called leonitin, which has allelopathic effects on other plants. The effects can either be positive or negative. Negative when it retards the growth of weeds that lives nearby. Positive when it enhanced crops growth performance.

In a study done in our lab, it was shown that it stops the seed germination of two type of weeds, Axonopus and the Paspalum, while it increase the rate of germination for Brassica and Zea mays.What this mean, this plant can be used a biological control for weeds when you plant sawi and corn and at the same time increase the growth rate of the two crops.