Chapter 131: Chicken Blood Vine
Yang Chunyan looked in the direction he pointed and said, "It seems so!"
Zhou Huaian walked towards the hairy ferns first. After passing the ferns, he saw a big tree with flat round fruits hanging all over its trunk, and many of them had fallen on the ground.
The scientific name of this tree is Ficus microcarpa, and the locals call it big fig.
The bark of the banyan tree is gray-brown and rough, the young branches are covered with soft hairs, the leaves are alternate, thick papery, and broadly ovate-cordate, and the fruits are clustered at the base of the trunk or on short branches of old stems.
The flowering period of the large-fruited fig is from August to March of the following year, and the fruiting period is from May to August. The fruits are larger than figs.
The fruit is reddish brown or purple-red, pear-shaped or oblate, and contains a large amount of honey-like pectin inside. It melts in the mouth and is sweet and juicy.
The tender branches and leaves of the large-fruited fig can be used as vegetables and can also be used as livestock feed. When the female plant's fruits mature, their shape and taste are a bit like figs, but they are sweeter and juicier than figs.
Male plants also bear fruit, but the flesh is dry and inedible.
Banyan fruit: sweet and slightly warm in nature. It has the effects of promoting lactation, replenishing qi and generating blood. It is mainly used to treat postpartum women with qi deficiency and lack of milk, and asthma due to lung deficiency. The fruit can also be used as medicine after it matures and is dried.
Zhou Huaian walked over and broke off a fig. He opened it and took a look. When he saw no worms, he handed it to her, "Yan'er, this one is ripe."
The large-fruited fig tree relies on fig wasps for pollination. People in the mountains know that before eating the large-fruited fig, they have to break it open first to take a look, because there may be the corpses of fig wasps living inside.
Yang Chunyan took it and looked at the deep red jelly-like flesh, took a bite, and finished one in two or three bites. "It's delicious, sweet and thirst-quenching!"
The fruits are still delicious these days, and there is no need to worry about fruit flies laying eggs and growing maggots in the fruits.
Zhou Huaian handed her another one. "There used to be a tree at the entrance of the village. Everyone would look at the fruits before they were ripe. My grandma saw it when she was herding sheep in the mountains, and she brought some for us." He put down the basket and said, "I'll pick more and eat them on the way."
"Just pick a dozen or so, and pick more for Jiaming and the others when you go back."
"Okay!" Zhou Huaian stood on a big rock, looked up, picked the ripe fruits, and handed them to Yang Chunyan.
It didn't take long before the basket was filled with twenty or thirty fruits. The two men each held a fruit and walked towards the fragrant mountain. The sunlight shone into the forest through the treetops.
"Huaian, the sun is already high in the sky, and our backpacks are still empty."
"Don't worry, there's still Purple Ganoderma waiting for us!"
As they were talking, they soon arrived at a place where all the mountain incense was cut. Yang Chunyan walked closer to take a look, and saw new buds sprouting next to the severed stems.
Zhou Huaian had already gone to the nest he had left last time. Seeing the pine needles and dry grass supported by the grown-up purple ganoderma, he shouted excitedly, "Yan'er, it's still there, it's still there!"
Hearing the sound, Yang Chunyan walked over quickly and saw the Ganoderma lucidum in Zhou Huaian's hand. In just half a month, it had grown to the size of a small bowl, and the edges were covered with white. "It's really still there!"
"Yeah!" Zhou Huaian looked at her happily, "I'll go check out the other one, you look around, are there any smaller ones?"
"Yes!" Yang Chunyan found a few more flowers as big as spoons under the tree stump, and a few that had just grown out, like a pen with a cap.
She grabbed some dead grass and pine needles to cover them, then walked over and found another one in the grass. She covered it again to make a nest, and she could come and pick them next month.
Zhou Huaian held another flower and looked at her frustratedly, "Look, they are all bitten by insects."
Yang Chunyan took it and looked at it, and she also felt it was a pity, "I found a few smaller ones, we will come again later!"
Zhou Huaian nodded, "Where are we going?"
Yang Chunyan looked around and pointed to the woods in the north, "Look over there!"
“Yes!”
The two continued to walk in, and every two steps they could see trumpet mushrooms, big-foot mushrooms, milk mushrooms, and brush mushrooms...
After walking for more than ten minutes, I picked up about seven or eight kilograms of stone fungus from several rocks. The last time I picked up two kilograms of stone fungus, I sold it for five yuan.
This time's goods looked worse than the last time, but Yang Chunyan thought it should be no problem to sell them for fifteen or sixteen yuan.
Zhou Huaian picked up a few big-foot mushrooms of particularly good quality and said, "Yan'er, there are quite a lot of fungi, but why don't I see any herbs?"
"Do you think there are herbs everywhere in the mountains?"
"Today's luck doesn't seem to be as good as last time."
"Take your time, don't panic, you'll find something good."
The two walked for another half an hour and saw a fallen dead tree in front of them. The trunk was covered with moss and brown mushrooms growing crowded together.
"Huaian, pick up those mushrooms and dry them."
Zhou Huaian walked forward to take a look and sighed, "I didn't find any herbs, so I can only pick up some mushrooms to take back!"
Seeing him sighing, Yang Chunyan found it a little funny, "There are so many mushrooms and you are still sighing!"
"Why don't you sigh? I can't find what I want, and what I don't want to find is everywhere." Zhou Huaian put down his backpack and picked up a few flowers, but he still couldn't muster up interest. "Yan'er, how about we go to the Magnolia officinalis forest and take a look?"
"It's not even noon yet! Are you losing your temper?"
"I'm just worried that this trip is in vain!" Zhou Huaian helped put the mushrooms in the basket and touched his stomach. "I was busy all afternoon and only found a purple Ganoderma lucidum and some rotten mushrooms."
Yang Chunyan finished picking up the mushrooms and stood up. "Look ahead. If there is nothing, we can go back and pick the leaves of the stinking peony."
"This is the only way!" Zhou Huaian picked up the backpack and the two continued to move forward.
On the way, I cut some mountain incense and found a few not-so-good red Ganoderma lucidum.
Finally, he got some results, and Zhou Huaian's interest became high. He poked around with a stick, and when he saw something strange, he picked it up and asked Yang Chunyan if it was a herb.
Yang Chunyan looked at him several times and then became too lazy to pay attention to him.
After walking forward for a while, she was attracted by a flat round vine as thick as an adult's arm, twisting and turning on the tree. "Chicken Blood Vine!"
She walked closer and saw that the chicken blood vine was clinging to a tree on the slope, and its long vine had climbed to the top of the tree.
When the stem of the chicken blood vine is cut, a bright red pulp like chicken blood flows out from the cross section, hence the name chicken blood vine. She thought that in another 20 or 30 years, if she wanted to find such a thick chicken blood vine, she would have to go deep into the mountains.
Millettia spatholobi is a climbing shrub that can grow up to 20 to 30 meters. She had heard that someone had found a Millettia spatholobi that was dozens of miles long.
The vine stem is cylindrical, with a gray-brown and rough surface, longitudinal grooves, transverse ring patterns and wart-like lenticels, and visible traces of tumor-like lateral branches.
The tripterygium wilfordii leaves are alternate, with long petioles; the terminal leaflets are broadly elliptical; there is a longitudinal groove on the petiole, and a layer of hair on the leaf surface.
The leaves are lush and green, and the flowers bloom in clusters, shaped like little butterflies, with white petals and a strong fragrance.
Millettia reticulata is used as medicine with its stems: bitter, sweet, warm. It enters the liver and kidney meridians. It has the effects of nourishing blood, activating blood circulation, and unblocking collaterals. It is used for irregular menstruation, blood deficiency, chlorosis, numbness and paralysis, rheumatism and pain.
After harvesting the fruits, the country people mostly use them to make wine!
(End of this chapter)
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