Baikal Skullcap

Baikal skullcap, also called Chinese skullcap, is a flowering plant of the mint family, native to China, Korea, Mongolia and the Russian Far East and Siberia. It is one of the 50 fundamental herbs of traditional Chinese medicine, where it is known as huángqín. In that tradition the name usually means the dried root, and the root of Scutellaria baicalensis is named alongside the roots of three related species. The root holds several phytochemicals, chiefly baicalein, baicalin, wogonin, norwogonin and oroxylin A, together with beta-sitosterol. Because the word skullcap is applied to over 200 plants, the scientific name is the safer one to use, and North American skullcap, Scutellaria lateriflora, is sometimes mistaken for it. There are reports of acute liver injury with jaundice appearing one to three months after people began taking herbal or dietary supplements that contained it.