Starwort Tincture & Alcohol-Free Extract

Starwort as sold here is the Chinese drug he shi, the fruit of Carpesium abrotanoides (pharmacopoeial name Fructus Carpesii Seu Dauci, since wild carrot, Daucus carota, is an alternative source), a perennial of the daisy family, Asteraceae, native to China, Japan, Korea and the Himalaya, where it grows on moist slopes and roadsides. It reaches 50 to 100 cm with large oval leaves and nodding, button-like yellow flower heads in the leaf axils. The fruit is a tiny cylindrical achene about 3 mm long, ribbed and tipped with a sticky beak. We extract the dried fruit.