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Dragon’s Tongue Leaf

6 June 2009 2,842 views 3 Comments
 
Ingredient Name: Dragon’s Tongue Leaf or Waffle Plant Leaf
 
Traditional Chinese Name:  龍舌葉 (lóng shé yè)
 
What is this?
  • The Dragon Tongue plant is a small, short indoor or outdoor herbal plant that grows from 6-12 inches in height
  • The plant blooms white flowers between Spring and Summer months
  •  It’s scientific name is Hemigraphis Repanda
  • Some people use this plant in aquariums

How do I prepare it?

  • Wash under warm running water

Where can I buy this?

  • You can purchase fresh Dragon’s Tongue Leaf from some wet marts in Hong Kong

What is the cost?

  • A bag of roughly 15 leaves cost around $2 HKD

Any benefits?

  • It is said to help relieve coughs and colds when made in soups

Any precautions?

  • Due to a lack of information available on this herb, I would take precaution when using it

Additional Information?

  • You can grow this plant yourself as an indoor plant, although it requires consistently moist soil

References:



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3 Comments »

  • andrew seow said:

    hi. i just came across yr site. the chinese name is correct. but the scientific name is wrong. u can see from the links u provided, the plant does not represent what you have in the picture. your picture of the leaves are what we call dragon tongue leaves (literal translation from cantonese). the common name waffle plant and dragon’s tongue is also used to refer to the plant commonly known as mother-in-law’s tongue.
    i can’t find the scientific name of the plant myself. but here is a link which is interesting for your readers:
    http://www.springerlink.com/content/4720345v16p42v93/
    part of an article by Shiu Ying Hu. and because of him/her, the plant for now is scientically known as sauropus changiana SY Hu. sauropus changiana is mother-in-law’s tongue but sauropus changiana SY Hu is dragon’s tongue (lung lei ip)
    cheers
    andrew

  • Wong said:

    Hi,
    Dragon’s tongue is a traditional medicinal herb. In the 1950s my mother used to boil its leaves with some herbal stuff (I vaguely remember biting into bitter almond) for us to drink when we had coughs. This plant has been with our family throughout this 60+ years, even though I don’t have it anymore my cousin’s garden still have it. Yesterday I bought a plant and the lady told me that it is good for coughs. She said that only 7 leaves should be used. Boil them with red dates or lor hon kor.

  • The Chinese Soup Lady & Chinese Soup Recipes » Blog Archive » Autumn Drink with Dragon’s Tongue Leaf and Luo Han Guo said:

    [...] dragon’s tongue leaves 7-8 fresh olives, crushed 20 wampees, crushed 1 tablespoon of  apricot kernals 1/2 of a luo han [...]

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