Medicinal Herbs

Curculigo Root Extract

Curculigo orchioides

Sâm cau (Curculigo orchioides) is a perennial herb of forty centimetres or so, rising from a long cylindrical underground stem. Its narrow leaves, tapered at both ends and fifteen to forty centimetres long, look much like the fronds of an areca palm, which is where the Vietnamese name comes from; small yellow flowers sit in clusters of three to five within the leaf sheath, followed by a slim capsule. The plant is common through the northern provinces of Vietnam, and grows also in Cambodia, India, Malaysia, Thailand, China and the Philippines. The root is dug, washed, sliced thin and dried, then simmered in water or steeped in rice spirit.