Jin Sha Teng (Japanese Fern or Lygodium)

Chinese Herb Actions

Chinese Herb Dosage

• What is the dosage of Jin Sha Teng, and does it need to be decocted wrapped?

  15–60 g in decoction, and no — the vine is decocted normally, loose in the pot. It does not take the wrapped-decoction (bao jian) instruction that the spores of the same fern require. Our record also notes that it can be used topically.

  • Why the dose is so much larger than the spores’ — this is bulky leafy vine, not a concentrated powder. The spores of the same plant are given at roughly 6–15 g; the vine at 15–60 g. The four-fold difference is a difference in the material, not in potency, and it is one of the clearest practical reasons never to substitute one for the other.
  • No wrapping needed — the spores are wrapped in cloth because they are a microscopic dust that floats, clumps and passes straight through a strainer. Chopped vine has none of those properties and is handled like any other stem-and-frond medicinal. If a supplier or a formula sheet attaches a wrapping instruction to this herb, that is a sign the two parts have been confused.
  • Topical use — our record records external application. Decoctions of cooling, toxin-clearing herbs in this group are traditionally used as washes and compresses for hot swellings.
  • Wide range — the 15–60 g span is unusually broad even for a bulky herb, and the upper end belongs to acute damp-heat presentations rather than to routine prescribing.

  Source: our own herb record (dosage range and topical note as held on file, and the separate dosage held for the spores of the same fern); wrapped-decoction handling of the spores per published materia medica consensus (Bensky, 3rd ed.; Chen & Chen), cross-referenced against multiple online sources. Reference only — not a prescription.

Chinese Herb Contraindications & Cautions

• Are there cautions for Jin Sha Teng?

  Our record holds no cautions for this herb. The sensible ones are the category cautions that attach to any sweet, cold, urination-promoting medicinal: it is not appropriate where there is no damp-heat to clear, and it is used carefully where fluids or yang are already depleted. That is an inference from what the herb is, not a documented contraindication for it.

  • Cold and draining — cold herbs given against a deficiency-cold or yang-deficient picture are held to weaken the Spleen and deplete fluids further. The same caution is recorded on our page for the spores of this plant.
  • No damp-heat present — this is a pattern-specific herb rather than a general diuretic; used outside its pattern it has nothing useful to do.
  • Large dose range — the recorded range reaches 60 g, which is high by any standard. Doses at that end belong in professional hands.
  • The indications are medical conditions — blood in the urine, urinary stones, mumps and a severely swollen throat all require diagnosis and management by a physician. This entry documents a traditional herb; it is not guidance for treating any of them.
  • Pregnancy — no specific contraindication is recorded in our data. As with any cold, draining herb, use in pregnancy should be under a qualified practitioner.

  Source: our own herb record (no cautions held on file) and our record for the spores of the same plant; category cautions per published materia medica consensus (Bensky, 3rd ed.), cross-referenced against multiple online sources. Reference note, not a safety guarantee.

Chinese Herb Toxicity & Overdose

• Is Jin Sha Teng toxic?

  No toxicity is recorded for this herb in the materia medica, and it is not flagged as toxic in our own records. We could not locate any published toxicology study, poisoning report or dose-limiting safety finding specific to the vine of Lygodium japonicum. In an eight-week study in obese mice, an extract of the herb given orally at 300 and 600 mg/kg produced no reported adverse findings, but that is an efficacy study rather than a toxicology evaluation and should not be read as one.

  As with the spores of the same plant, we do not treat toxicity findings reported for other members of the genus — for example L. flexuosum or L. microphyllum — as transferable evidence about this species. The absence of findings here reflects an absence of published investigation, not a demonstration of safety.

  Source: our own herb record (not flagged toxic); eight-week oral dosing in mice per PMID 41552471, PMC 12809567; PubMed search returned no species-specific toxicology for the aerial herb. Neutral reference facts — not a safety guarantee.

Herb-Drug Interactions

• No herb–drug interactions have been documented for Jin Sha Teng. There are no clinical interaction studies, case reports or pharmacokinetic data for this material. As a precaution rather than a documented finding, a herb used at doses up to 60 g for urinary complaints warrants practitioner awareness in patients taking diuretics or medicines cleared by the kidney, and the liver-related animal work below is a reason for the same awareness in patients on hepatically metabolised drugs. Patients should tell their prescriber what is in their formula. (Flagged for practitioner confirmation; reference information only.)

Western / Biomedical Research

Chinese Herb Clinical Studies & Research

Provided as research context — a summary of published biomedical study, not a therapeutic or medical claim.

• Is there modern research on Jin Sha Teng (Lygodium japonicum)?

  Yes, but it is thin and it splits along the same line as the tradition: the small amount of work on the vine is about the liver, while the better-developed kidney-stone research belongs to the spores of the same fern. There are no human clinical trials of either part.

  • Fatty liver disease in mice (the herb itself) — a 2026 ACS Omega study gave an extract of Lygodium japonicum herb orally at 300 and 600 mg/kg for eight weeks to genetically obese (ob/ob) mice as a model of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. The authors report reduced weight gain and liver-to-body-weight ratio, lower transaminases and serum lipids, improved liver histology, and suppression of TLR4/MyD88/NF-κB and MAPK signalling, alongside reduced lipid-synthesis and increased lipid-oxidation gene expression. They note the herb’s recorded use in hepatitis in the Chinese materia medica as the reason for testing it. An animal study of an extract; not evidence of benefit in people.
  • Antioxidant constituents of the aerial parts — a 2012 study isolated two caffeoyl glucose derivatives (one new compound and one new natural product) together with six known compounds from the aerial parts, all showing strong antioxidant capacity in an oxygen radical absorbance assay. Isolated-compound chemistry.
  • Quality control — a 2023 miniature mass-spectrometry method selected nine constituents of L. japonicum as quality markers and was able to detect adulteration with sand and to distinguish different plant parts and related species. This is the most practically useful piece of research on the plant.
  • The spore literature, which is not this part — an ethanol extract of the spores reduced calcium oxalate stone formation in a rat model (PMID 24972555); a 2025 study isolated a polysaccharide from the fern that interferes with calcium oxalate crystal growth and adhesion (PMID 40318530); and ethanol extracts of the spores suppressed nitric oxide and TNF-α in stimulated macrophages (PMID 29067444). Listed here for completeness and clearly labelled: these tested the spores, not the vine.

  All of the above is laboratory and animal work. It offers a plausible background to the traditional heat-clearing use and, in the liver study, to a use the vine carries and the spores do not — but none of it supports a therapeutic claim.

  Sources: PMID 41552471, PMC 12809567, DOI 10.1021/acsomega.5c09360 (herb extract in ob/ob mice, fatty liver); PMID 22251217, DOI 10.1080/10286020.2011.650690 (caffeoyl glucosides from the aerial parts); PMID 36637180, DOI 10.1039/d2ay01769e (quality evaluation, parts and species); PMID 24972555, DOI 10.1007/s00240-014-0674-z, PMID 40318530, DOI 10.1016/j.phymed.2025.156734 and PMID 29067444, DOI 10.3892/mmr.2017.7070 (spore studies). Research context, not a therapeutic claim.

Chinese Herb Notes

• Is Jin Sha Teng the same plant as Hai Jin Sha?

  Yes — same fern, different part. Jin Sha Teng is the vine (the climbing stem and fronds) of Lygodium japonicum; Hai Jin Sha is the dried spores of that same fern. Our own records make the pairing explicit in the pharmaceutical Latin: this page is Herba Lygodii Japonici, the spore entry is Spora Lygodii Japonici. One plant, two catalogued medicinals.

  The Chinese names record the same relationship. Our translation for this herb is “Gold Sand Vine”; the spores are “Sea Gold Sand.” The “gold sand” in both names describes the fine golden-brown spore powder — the vine borrows the spores’ name and adds teng, vine. The herb is also met in the literature as Hai Jin Sha Teng, which is this entry and not a third substance.

  How the two parts differ in our own data:

  • Jin Sha Teng (this page) — the vine. Sweet, cold; Bladder and Small Intestine; filed under herbs that clear heat and eliminate toxins. 15–60 g, decocted loose, also used topically. Carries the fire-toxin action for mumps and swollen throat.
  • Hai Jin Sha — the spores. Sweet, cool; Bladder and Small Intestine; filed under herbs that regulate water and drain dampness. Roughly 6–15 g, and it must be decocted wrapped. It is the part identified with urinary and biliary stones.
  • Shared ground — both clear damp-heat from the urinary tract and both enter the same channel pair. The vine is the broader, colder, more toxin-clearing of the two; the spores are the narrower, stone-focused one.

  The one-plant-two-medicinals pattern recurs across the materia medica, and the two parts are not always both catalogued in the same collection. Inula is the example to hand: the flower head is Xuan Fu Hua, which we hold, while the aerial stem and leaf of the same plant, Jin Fei Cao, is a recognised separate medicinal that we do not currently hold. For this fern both parts are held, which is precisely why the labelling has to stay exact.

  See also: Hai Jin Sha — the spores of this same fern, Spora Lygodii Japonici, held as their own entry. This record is the vine, Herba Lygodii Japonici. The two pages cross-reference each other; a reader who meets the vine under the name Hai Jin Sha Teng belongs here rather than on the spore page.

  Empty identity fields, flagged not filled. This record carries no Chinese characters and no tone-marked pinyin, unlike the Hai Jin Sha record for the same plant. We have deliberately left both blank rather than supplying characters ourselves, since identity fields are an owner decision.

  How do you tell the vine from the spores in purchased material?

  By what the material physically is: the vine is recognisable chopped stem and frond, the spores are a fine free-flowing golden powder. Species and part confusion is a documented quality problem for this fern. A 2023 analytical study built a rapid mass-spectrometry method for Lygodium japonicum precisely to catch “common quality issues,” naming three: adulteration with sand, confusion between different parts of the plant, and confusion between different species. Sand adulteration is a hazard peculiar to the powdered spore material, whose name and appearance make added grit hard to spot; part confusion is the one that matters on this page.

  What is Jin Sha Teng combined with?

  Jin Sha Teng does not appear in any formula we currently hold, so the groupings below are the classical damp-heat pairings recorded in the reference literature rather than links from our own formula data:

  • With Jin Qian Cao and Che Qian Zi — for damp-heat painful urination; all three are in our materia medica.
  • With Ban Lan Gen or Xia Ku Cao — for mumps and hot neck and throat swellings, matching the fire-toxin action our record records.
  • With the spores of the same plant — the two parts are used together in some stone and painful-urination prescriptions, which is exactly why keeping them distinct on the label matters.

  (Traditional combination context, not treatment advice.)

  Source: our own herb records for this herb and for Hai Jin Sha (Latin names, categories, natures, channels, dosages and the absence of formula links); quality-control problems including sand adulteration and part/species confusion per PMID 36637180, DOI 10.1039/d2ay01769e; combinations per published materia medica consensus (Bensky, 3rd ed.), cross-referenced against multiple online sources.