Desert Thumb Tincture & Alcohol-Free Extract

Desert Thumb (Cynomorium songaricum, classified by Kew as Cynomorium coccineum subsp. songaricum), known in China as Suo Yang, is a leafless parasitic perennial of the Cynomoriaceae family, native to sandy and saline deserts of Inner Mongolia, Gansu, Ningxia, Xinjiang, and Mongolia, where it lives on the roots of nitre bushes, Nitraria. It has no green parts at all; in spring a thick, fleshy, club-shaped stem 15 to 100 centimeters tall pushes up through the sand, dark red to purplish-brown, covered in tiny scale leaves and, toward the top, a dense velvet of minute flowers. Dried, the stem is hard, dark, and wrinkled. We extract the dried herb.