1. Alias
Watermelon Green, Watermelon Green Clothes, Watermelon Green.
2. Plant morphology
Annual creeping herb. The stem is thin and weak, creeping, with obvious ridges and grooves. Two strands of tendrils, covered in fur. Leaves alternate, petioles are 3-12 cm long, leaves are triangular ovate or broadly ovate, 8-20 cm long, 5-18 cm wide, with 3 deep or nearly 3 fully lobed, the middle lobe is longer, the two lobes are shorter, and the lobes are irregularly feather deeply lobed or bipinnate, both sides are light green, and the edges are wavy or sparsely toothed. Male and female flowers are monoecious, with both male and female flowers growing singly in the leaf axils. Male flowers have a diameter of 2-2.5 centimeters, with thin flower stalks covered in soft hairs. The sepals combine to form a broad bell shape, covered in long hairs, with a 5-lobed tip and narrow lanceolate or linear lanceolate lobes. The corollas combine to form a funnel-shaped corolla, with a green outer surface covered in soft hairs. The upper part is deeply lobed, and the lobes are ovate or broadly elliptical in shape, with a blunt tip. Female flowers are larger than male flowers, and the sepals are similar to male flowers. Gouguo is nearly circular or elongated elliptical in shape, with a diameter of about 30 centimeters. Its surface is green or light green, and often has stripes of varying depths. The seeds are mostly flat, slightly oval in shape, black, red, white or yellow, or spotted, smooth on both sides, blunt and round at the base, and often slightly arched at the edges. Flower and fruit period in summer.
3. Origin distribution
Cultivated throughout the country.
4. Harvesting and processing
Collect watermelon peels in summer, peel off the soft inner layer, wash thoroughly, and dry in the sun. Some also peel off the outer green skin and only take the middle part.
5. Characteristics of medicinal herbs
The outer skin of the fruit is often rolled into tubular, spindle shaped, or irregular pieces of varying sizes, with a thickness of 0.5-1 cm. The outer surface is dark green, yellow green, or light yellow white, smooth or with varying shades of wrinkles, and the inner surface color is slightly light, yellow white to yellow brown, with a network of veins (vascular bundles) and often fruit stalks. Crispy, fragile, odorless, and light in taste.
6. Sexual Taste Returning to the Classics
Cold in nature, sweet in taste. Guixin Meridian, Stomach Meridian, Bladder Meridian.
7. Effect and Function
Clear heat, quench thirst, and promote diuresis. A heat clearing and purging gunpowder classified under the category of heat clearing drugs.
8. Clinical application
Oral administration: decoct soup, dosage 9-30 grams, or roast and grind into powder. External use: appropriate amount, burn and grind powder. Indications include summer heat, irritability, thirst, shortness of urine, edema, and mouth and tongue sores.
9. Chemical composition
It mainly contains aspartic acid, threonine, fructose, glucose, sucrose, lycopene, vitamin C, etc.
10. Usage taboos
Those with moderate cold and high humidity are prohibited from taking it.
11. Compatibility prescription
① Treatment for anal prolapse: 50g watermelon peel, moderate amount of rock sugar. Boil it in water. (Fujian Pharmaceutical Journal)
② Treatment of children's summer fever: 15 grams of watermelon peel and honeysuckle, 9 grams of pseudostellaria, 6 grams of lentil flower and mint (bottom), and half of fresh lotus leaf. Fry and serve. (Anhui Chinese Herbal Medicine)
③ Treatment of hypertension: 10-12 grams of watermelon peel and 10 grams of cassia seed. Boil soup as a substitute for tea. (Food, Traditional Chinese Medicine, and Toilet Formula)
④ Treatment of diabetes, thirst and turbid urine: 15 grams of watermelon skin, 15 grams of winter melon skin, 12 grams of trichosanthin, fried in water. (Food, Traditional Chinese Medicine, and Toilet Formula)
⊙ The content of the article is for clinical reference only. Non TCM professionals are not allowed to test drugs.