Robert Fortune, who is best known for introducing tea plants from China to India, sent the roots of the balloon flower plant from China to the Horticultural Society of London at Chiswick, England in 1844. In Traditional Chinese Medicine since at least 100 AD, the bitter platycodon root (Jiegeng has been used in combination with other herbs for a variety of conditions, but especially as a “phlegm-loosener” for lung and throat ailments and for the treatment of abscesses. Young dried roots also were used as a source of dietary starch after being blanched to remove the bitter saponin that is the plant’s medicinal component.

Part used::
Roots

Origin:
Asia

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Origin

East Asia; introduced into India and cultivated in rockeries and borders.

Action:

Expectorant and antitussive.

Root—used to treat cough, tonsillitis and asthma, also to treat stomatitis, peptic ulcer and inflammatory diseases. (WHO.)

1) Hull, Kathleen; Photog. Hull, Meredith /Indiana Medical History Museum: Guide to the Medicinal Plant Garden./ USA: Indiana Medical History Museum. 2010. -- p. 58.

2) Khare, C.P./ Indian Medicinal Plants. -- Nueva Dheli: Springer, 2007 . - p  501.