Zhu Li (Dried Bamboo Sap)

Chinese Herb Actions

Chinese Herb Dosage

• What is the dosage of Zhu Li, and how is it taken?

  Roughly 30–60 g — a far larger figure than most herbs, because Zhu Li is a liquid rather than a dried plant part. The two reference ranges held here are 30–50 g dissolved into the decoction immediately before it is taken (Chen) and 30–60 g (Bensky). Comparing that number with the 3–9 g typical of dried herbs is misleading: it is a weight of sap, most of which is water.

  • It is not boiled with the other herbs. Like other prepared liquids and gelatins, it is stirred into the strained, finished decoction just before drinking, or taken on its own. Cooking it with the rest of the prescription would defeat the point.
  • How it is produced — fresh bamboo culms are heated so that liquid is driven out of the stem and collected. The product is a clear-to-amber juice, not a powder or a cut herb, and the collection process is the whole preparation.
  • Storage — being an aqueous liquid, it does not keep the way dried herbs do; commercial material is typically supplied bottled and preserved rather than in bulk.

  Identity note flagged, not corrected: the English name held on this record is “Dried Bamboo Sap.” The substance is a liquid — the recorded Latin, Bambusae Succus, means precisely bamboo juice, and the recorded dosage instruction is to dissolve it into the decoction, which only makes sense for a liquid. The word “dried” appears to be a legacy artefact. The identity field has been left exactly as held and is flagged here for review rather than changed.

  Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (dosage field with both recorded reference ranges, Latin name and English name as held on file); production method per PMID 40028052, PMC 11866172, DOI 10.1021/acsomega.4c11224. Reference only — not a prescription.

Chinese Herb Contraindications & Cautions

• Are there cautions for Zhu Li?

  It should not be used for a cough due to cold, and not where there are loose stools from Spleen deficiency — the two cautions held here, and both follow from the fact that this is one of the coldest substances in the phlegm chapter. A very cold, slippery liquid given to someone with a cold, weak digestion will make matters worse in both directions.

  • Cold-type cough — contraindicated. A cough with copious clear or white sputum, worse for cold, is the opposite of the phlegm-heat pattern this herb addresses.
  • Spleen deficiency with loose stools — contraindicated. Cold and slippery in nature, it tends to loosen the bowel further.
  • Not a self-care herb. The indications recorded for it — loss of consciousness, seizure, wind-stroke with loss of speech — describe medical emergencies in which conventional emergency care is what is needed. They are documented here as traditional reference facts, not as instructions for use.
  • Prepared-liquid quality — because it is a bottled aqueous product rather than a dried herb, source, preservation and shelf-life matter more than they do for cut herbs.

  Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (cautions field and nature/flavour as held on file); cross-referenced against multiple online sources and materia medica consensus. Reference note, not a safety guarantee.

Chinese Herb Toxicity & Overdose

• None Noted

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 Zhu Li (Bambusae Succus)?

  Some — but far less than for most herbs, and none of it clinical. Bamboo sap is a chemically odd material: an aqueous exudate whose activity sits in small phenolic compounds rather than in the alkaloids or saponins that dominate most herb research. Bioassay-guided fractionation of bamboo sap (Succus Bambusae) identified a simple dihydroxyacetophenone as its anti-inflammatory lead compound, which chemists then used as a starting point for a series of synthetic analogues tested in a mouse model of acute liver failure.

  • The closest studied analogue is Korean. Bambusae caulis in Liquamen — a liquid obtained from heat-treated fresh bamboo stems of Phyllostachys nigra — is described in the research literature as a traditional East Asian remedy for coughs and asthma, which is the same territory as the Zhu Li cough indication. It is essentially the same class of preparation arrived at by the same production principle.
  • What that material has shown — anti-inflammatory, anti-allergic and immune-regulating activity; suppression of atopic-dermatitis-like skin lesions in hairless mice, with reduced serum IgE and reduced IL-4, IL-13 and TNF-α expression; suppression of chemokine expression in human keratinocytes; and cytoprotective, antioxidant effects in hepatocytes. Animal and cell work throughout.
  • Its constituents are simple phenolics. Activity-guided isolation yielded compounds including 2,6-dimethoxyphenol and the dihydroxybenzenes, with antioxidant and nitric-oxide-inhibiting activity in cell assays — consistent with the acetophenone lead found in Chinese bamboo sap.
  • Production research is active — hot-pressing methods for extracting bamboo sap have been developed as a higher-value use of bamboo material, which is relevant to the consistency and availability of the medicinal liquid.

  There is no clinical trial evidence for Zhu Li’s traditional indications, and the severe presentations it is classically associated with have not been studied. Everything above is laboratory or animal research reported as context.

  Sources: PMID 42308786, DOI 10.1016/j.bioorg.2026.110115 (bamboo sap / Succus Bambusae lead compound and analogues, mouse acute liver failure); PMID 19429362, DOI 10.1016/j.jep.2009.03.020 (Bambusae caulis in Liquamen, traditional cough and asthma use, atopic dermatitis model in mice); PMID 21785648, PMC 3137989, DOI 10.1155/2012/617494 (chemokine suppression in human keratinocytes); PMID 37570831, PMC 10421324, DOI 10.3390/molecules28155862 (cytoprotective effect in hepatocytes); PMID 21985061, DOI 10.1080/14786419.2011.593517 (phenolic constituents and their activity); PMID 40028052, PMC 11866172, DOI 10.1021/acsomega.4c11224 (bamboo sap extraction method). Research context, not a therapeutic claim.

Chinese Herb Notes

• What is the difference between Zhu Li, Zhu Ru and Tian Zhu Huang?

  Three different medicinals, all from bamboo, all cooling phlegm herbs — and they are not interchangeable. One is a shaving, one is a liquid and one is a mineral-like concretion, and each has a different channel reach and a different strength. This site holds all three as separate records.

  • Zhu Ru (竹茹, bamboo shavings, Bambusae Caulis in Taeniam) — sweet, slightly cold; Gallbladder, Lung, Stomach. The shaved strips of the culm, and the mildest and most routinely used of the three. The everyday choice for phlegm-heat cough, Stomach-heat nausea and vomiting, and Gallbladder-heat irritability and insomnia. Taken in an ordinary decoction. It is on both exam lists and appears in Wen Dan Tang and Ju Pi Zhu Ru Tang.
  • Zhu Li (竹沥, bamboo sap, Bambusae Succus) — sweet, very cold; Heart, Lung, Stomach. The liquid pressed or driven out of heated fresh culms. Much colder and much stronger than the shavings, and the only one of the three with the Heart channel: it is reserved for severe phlegm-heat and phlegm-fire — phlegm misting the Heart, wind-stroke with loss of speech, seizures, agitation. Taken as a liquid stirred into a finished decoction, in doses of 30–60 g.
  • Tian Zhu Huang (天竺黄, bamboo concretion or tabasheer, Bambusae Concretio Silicea) — sweet, cold; Gallbladder, Heart, Liver. A silica-rich concretion that forms inside the nodes of certain bamboos, not a plant tissue at all. Its speciality is calming the spirit and stopping convulsions, classically in children with acute fright-wind, and it is considered gentler on the digestion than Zhu Li for paediatric use. Dosed like a normal herb: 3–9 g in decoction, or 0.6–1 g as powder.

  The shortest version: shavings for the ordinary case, sap for the emergency, concretion for convulsions and the spirit — and note that only Zhu Ru enters the Gallbladder and Stomach together, only Zhu Li is very cold, and only Tian Zhu Huang enters the Liver.

  A practical consequence of the dosage forms: Zhu Ru and Tian Zhu Huang are dispensed by the gram like any dried herb, while Zhu Li has to be sourced as a bottled liquid and added at the end. That difference in handling, rather than any difference in principle, is a large part of why the sap appears in fewer prescriptions.

  Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (the herb records for Zhu Ru, Zhu Li and Tian Zhu Huang — nature, flavour, channels, dosages and formula links — as held on file); cross-referenced against multiple online sources and materia medica consensus (Bensky, Materia Medica 3rd ed.).