Bei Mu (Zhe) Tincture & Alcohol-Free Extract

Bei Mu (Zhe), the Chinese name for the Zhejiang fritillary, Fritillaria thunbergii, is a bulbous perennial of the lily family, Liliaceae, native to eastern China and Japan and grown as a field crop around Ningbo in Zhejiang province, which gives the name Zhe. It grows 50 to 80 centimeters with whorls of narrow, grey-green leaves whose upper tips curl into tendrils, and in early spring carries several nodding, bell-shaped flowers of pale greenish-yellow netted with faint purple inside. The bulb is made of two or three thick, fleshy, white scales that enclose a smaller bud; the dried scales are chalky white, hard, and bitter. We extract the dried bulb.