Evolution and transition of quality evaluation of Platycodon grandiflorum

Abstract

Platycodon grandiflorum, a traditional Chinese medicine commonly used for coughing and eliminating phlegm to relieve asthma, has gained great attention to its quality evaluation in ancient and modern herbal books. This paper investigated the methods of quality evaluation in the ancient herbal books systematically, and the results showed that there were bitter and sweet P. grandiflorum, south and north P. grandiflorum. Those distributed in east China were called south P. grandiflorum, with bitter taste; and those distributed in north China, northeast China were called north P. grandiflorum, with sweet taste. There was a common sense that P. grandiflorum with a bitter taste had good quality in the ancient herbal books, namely those produced in east China. P. grandiflorum of better quality were characterized by thicker and longer root, white color, solid texture and bitter taste in properties. In addition, the quality of P. grandiflorum was also affected by its germplasm, collecting and processing. This paper summarized the formation and development of the "assessing the quality by distinguishing features of traditional Chinese medicinal materials" views of P. grandiflorum, providing the herbalism basis for its present quality evaluation.