Chinese Cucumber

Trichosanthes kirilowii is a flowering plant of the gourd family found particularly in Henan, Shandong, Hebei, Shanxi and Shaanxi in China, and known in English as Chinese cucumber or Chinese snake gourd. It is one of the 50 fundamental herbs of traditional Chinese medicine, where it shares the name guālóu with the related Trichosanthes rosthornii. The tuber is called tiān huā fěn in Mandarin and is said to drain heat and generate fluids, clear lung heat, transform phlegm, moisten lung dryness, and resolve toxicity and expel pus. The fruit, also called guālóu, is said to clear heat and transform phlegm-heat, unbind the chest, reduce abscesses and dissipate nodules. The plant is a source of trichosanthin, a protein related to ricin. Extracts have been shown in the laboratory to damage the protein coat on the RNA of the AIDS virus. Both tuber and fruit are described as safe only under professional guidance, though the source adds that this may be an unnecessary extrapolation from the toxicity of the purified protein.