A total of 788 ECM among 8980 TCM were retrieved from the Chinese Materia Medica. The ECM’s drug names, plant names, sources, effects, indications, medicinal properties, medicinal taste, meridian, medicinal parts, toxicity, introduction route, life type, family, genus, introduction time, first medical literature of loading, the first application time, and the place of origin, can be seen in Supplement 1.
3.1 Resources characteristics of ECM
3.1.1 The dominant family of ECM and its introduction route
The percentage of botanical ECM was 98.70%. The botanical ECM was distributed among 94 families, 316 genera, and 469 species (including subspecies, varieties, and hybrids). The top 10 families were Fabaceae, Asteraceae, Euphorbiaceae, Solanaceae, Amaranthaceae, Malvaceae, Lamiaceae, Myrtaceae, Brassicaceae, and Liliaceae. The percentage of animal ECM was 0.84%: Corallium rubrum of Coralliidae, Cairina moschata of Anatidae, Capra aegagrus hircus of Bovidae, and Castor canadensis of Castoridae. The percentage of mineral ECM was 0.42%: Agate of Oxide Quartz Group and the Manganite of oxide rutile group. The most dominant family and its introduction route can be seen in Fig.1. The overall view on families and their introduction route in China can be seen in Supplement 2.
Fig.1: The most dominant family and its introduction route in China.
Notes: Introduction Way: Af, afforestation; Co, compound; CR, cotton ramie; Dy, dye; FAV, fruits and vegetables; FI, Food intake; Fo, forge; GM, green manure; Gr, grain; He, hedge; Me, medicinal; Na, natural; Oi, oil; Or, ornamental; Pe, perfume; SC, sugar crop; ST, street trees; UI, unintentional; Wo, wood.
3.1.2 The origin place of ECM
To assess the origin place of ECM, we used the continental division system of Biodiversity Information Standards (www.tdwg.org). For species already described in Guangyao's Xu research on naturalized plants in China, we have used these source information. The results are standardized according to the Biodiversity Information Standards. The place of origin for the ECM were: 144 from South America, 96 from tropical Asia, 69 from temperate Asia, 67 from Oceania, 62 from Africa, 56 from North America, 42 from Europe, six unknown, five from the Pacific, two Paleotropic, two with hybrid origin (especially refers to the hybrid plants of Chinese native plants and naturalized plants), one with origin of cultivation, and six non-verified specific origins.
3.1.3 Introduction time and routes of ECM
We confirmed the introduction time of the 410 species, and 65 species had not been verified. The annual introduction rate of each dynasty is shown in Fig.2. A total of 33 species were introduced during Zhou dynasty (1029–221BC) to Han dynasty (206 BC–220 AD), 24 species were introduced during Wei, Jin, Southern, and Northern Dynasties (220–581 AD), 25 species introduced during Sui and Tang Dynasties (581–907 AD), 26 species introduced during Song Jinyuan period (960–1368 AD), 35 species introduced during Ming dynasty (1368–1644 AD), 95 species introduced during Qing dynasty (1636–1911 AD), 80 species introduced during the Republic period, and 172 species introduced during 1912–1999 AD.
Fig.2: Annual average number of introduced species per dynasty.
A total of 29 routes for the introduction of ECM in China were found. The main ones(Fig.3) were ornamental (23.05%), fruit and vegetable (22.07%), unintentional introduction (13.41%), medicinal (10.61%), and spice (5.61%). The ECM introduced by these routes accounted for 74.76% of the total. A few species were found to be introduced in China in multiple ways (e.g., nutmeg through medicinal and spice routes).
Fig.3: Introduction routes of exotic Chinese medicines in China.
3.2 Medicinal information of ECM
3.2.1 The efficacy of ECM
The efficacy of TCM is recorded with a summary of diagnosis and treatment. The current Chinese clinical medicine usually divides the efficacy of Chinese medicines into 22 major categories. We classified the ECM based on efficacy and indication, Chinese medical diagnostics, and basic medical knowledge. And then, we get the frequency of exotic Chinese medicines with various functions in each dynasty (Table 1), which shows that the most introduced categories of ECM were "clear heat" and diuresis, suggesting that local ECM may lack resources in these two areas.
The efficacy of the 788 ECM here studied is distributed throughout the major of Chinese clinical medicine. The main efficacies found for the ECM were: "clearing heat," "promoting urination and draining," "promoting blood circulation and removing stasis," "hemostasis," "regulating Qi," "relieve cough and asthma," "resolving phlegm," "counteracting toxic substances and insecticides, remove rotting skin and muscle and convergence wet sores," "removing rheumatism," and "tonic."
Table 1: Frequency of exotic Chinese medicines with various functions in each dynasty.
3.2.2 The indication of ECM
The indications of TCM refer to the main clinical adaptation of the drug, also called the main adaptation range. Ancient Chinese doctors obtain indications of Chinese medicine through clinical practice. The descriptions of ECM indications come from different documents, thus we have analyzed and standardized the treatment of the main treatment of each medicine. The detailed treatment process and results are shown in Supplement 3. A total of 826 indications were reported for ECM. The top 50 were: sore, carbuncle, fall injury, cough, dysentery, diarrhea, edema, rheumatic arthralgia, sore, boil, vomiting blood, eczema, respite, jaundice, vomiting, hot eyes, sore throat, metrorrhagia and metro taxis, scald, blood in stool, boil, difficulty in urination, stomach ache, hemoptysis, scabies, gangrene, headache, traumatic bleeding, malaria, irregular menstruation, stomachache, diarrhea, hemorrhoids, leukorrhea, sputum, leucorrhea, toothache, dysmenorrhea, lung fever, bloating, beriberi, blood, food accumulation, constipation, hypertension, scrofula, snakebite, fracture, amenorrhea, and malnutrition. The sum of the frequency of the top 50 accounts for 59% of all attending diseases. The top 10 frequencies were: 162, 151, 142, 129, 110, 80, 76, 63, 59, and 53. Half of the scope of the treatment of foreign Chinese medicine belongs to skin diseases, urinary system diseases, trauma, respiratory diseases, digestive system diseases, and gynecological diseases. This result is consistent with its main effects of clearing heat, diuresis, activating blood to remove blood stasis, hemostasis, relieving cough, relieving cough and asthma, and resolving phlegm.