Eden Apothecary · Herb Profile
Alisma orientale
Pronounced Water Plantain / Ze Xie (dzuh SHYEH); Alisma orientale (ah-LIZ-muh or-ee-en-TAH-lee)
Cold, dry, sweet-and-bland draining diuretic: opens the water pathways to leach damp-heat and stagnant fluid downward and out through the urine, cooling the boggy, water-logged lower burner.
Insufficient modern safety data. Classical Chinese medicine used Ze Xie cautiously within formulas for pregnancy edema, but it is a strong diuretic that depletes fluid and electrolytes, and modern consumer references advise avoidance. Avoid in pregnancy except under qualified practitioner supervision. (Natural Medicines / WebMD, Asian Water Plantain; AHPA Botanical Safety Handbook, 2nd ed., 2013.)
Insufficient data. Diuretics can reduce maternal fluid status and theoretically milk volume. Avoid during lactation without practitioner guidance. (Natural Medicines / WebMD, Asian Water Plantain.)
No established pediatric safety data and not a routine Western pediatric herb. Reserve for practitioner-guided use in children, at weight-adjusted decoction doses, and not for prolonged courses. (No modern pediatric data; AHPA Botanical Safety Handbook, 2nd ed., 2013.)
A strong, draining, cold diuretic; use only where genuine damp or damp-heat is present. Not for spermatorrhea or leukorrhea arising from Kidney yang deficiency or damp-cold. Use caution with sunken middle-burner qi (Spleen qi deficiency, prolapse). Overdose or prolonged high-dose use can cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, hematuria, and potassium/electrolyte depletion; modern toxicology reports dose- and duration-dependent hepatotoxicity and nephrotoxicity (attributed to emodin and to high-dose alisols). Keep to therapeutic doses; avoid megadoses and open-ended long-term use, and use cautiously in pre-existing liver or kidney disease.
Kidney yang deficiency with cold; yin deficiency / fluid dryness without true dampness; sinking Spleen qi (caution). Pregnancy and lactation: avoid absent practitioner supervision. Avoid stacking with pharmaceutical diuretics without monitoring.
Not at-risk. Ze Xie is a cultivated aquatic (paddy) crop, grown at scale in Fujian (Jian Ze Xie) and Sichuan (Chuan Ze Xie); not listed by United Plant Savers or CITES. The sourcing concern is quality and processing rather than conservation: prefer lab-tested material free of excess sulfur-dioxide residue (a common processing and preservation problem for this root) and screened for heavy metals and agrochemical residues.
Not named in the canonical biblical texts; native to eastern Asia (China, Japan, Korea, eastern Russia). A foundational Chinese materia medica herb first recorded in the Shennong Ben Cao Jing (c. 200 CE) as a superior-grade drug said, in the Daoist idiom, to sharpen the senses, lighten the body, and prolong life with long use. Its European congener Alisma plantago-aquatica ('Water Plantain') carries a separate Western folk tradition (Culpeper, Grieve) and should not be conflated with the Chinese drug.
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