Botanical atlas

Fritillary Bulb

Fritillaria cirrhosa

Known in Traditional Chinese Medicine as Chuan Bei Mu, this small alpine bulb has been prized for well over a thousand years as one of the great lung-soothing herbs, reserved traditionally for the dry, hacking, phlegm-scant coughs that other remedies could not touch. It appears in classic formulas alongside loquat leaf and apricot kernel, most famously in the beloved cough syrup Pipa Gao. Because the plant grows so slowly at such extreme altitude, true Chuan Bei Mu became one of the most expensive and sought-after materials in the whole apothecary, a mark of a formula meant to be taken seriously. Every batch traditionally passed through the hands of a processor before it ever reached a patient, never used straight from the mountainside.

Safety.

Raw fritillary bulb contains toxic alkaloids that have caused serious poisoning, including fatal cases in children who mistook the bulb for food. In Traditional Chinese Medicine it is used only as a precisely processed ingredient in professional formulas, never as a home tea, and it is generally avoided in pregnancy.