Poria Hostwood

Traditional Use

Primary Actions

• Calms the spirit and settles fright - Fu Shen Mu is the wood core associated with Poria and is used for palpitations, forgetfulness, fright, and restlessness when the spirit is unsettled.
• Pacifies the Liver and relaxes spasm - official indications include post-stroke muteness, leg cramping, and wind-stirred sinew tension rather than only simple insomnia.
• Supports speech and movement recovery in deficiency-wind contexts - regional use extends to speech difficulty and sinew spasm after internal wind or lingering depletion.

Secondary Actions

• The Latin source clearly identifies this as Fu Shen Mu, the hostwood-associated Poria section, not as Zhu Fu Shen. Zhu Fu Shen is a different cinnabar-prepared product, so the stub pinyin has been corrected here for accuracy.
• Fu Shen Mu is related to Fu Shen but leans more toward calming, anchoring, and sinew-spasm indications than toward the gentler Spleen-supporting Shen-calming role of ordinary Fu Shen.

Classic Formulas

• Fu Shen San - traditional use pattern for speech difficulty, fright, or post-stroke disturbance in which Fu Shen Mu helps settle the spirit and support recovery.
• Song Jie San - official regional formula context for leg cramping or sinew spasm where the wood-associated material helps relax and settle.
• Pairings with Tian Ma, Gou Teng, or Long Gu - modernized traditional logic when internal wind, fright, and palpitations coexist.

Classical References

• Official Chinese references describe Fu Shen Mu as the pine root found within Poria, sweet and neutral, with functions of calming the Liver and spirit.
• The standard indications include fright palpitations, forgetfulness, post-stroke speech difficulty, and leg cramping.
• Correcting this page to Fu Shen Mu preserves a real medicinal identity that would otherwise be lost under the misleading stub pinyin.