Skip to content
Cura x Cura

Si Gua Pi丝瓜皮

Luffae Exocarpium · Luffa Peel · Sponge Gourd Skin

Herbs that Clear Heat 清热药

Overview

  • — of.*

The green skin pared from a luffa gourd. Sweet and cool, it is one of the small satellite drugs that surround Si Gua Luo, the dried vascular network of the same fruit: the flesh, seeds, leaves, vine, stalk and peel each carry their own entry in the older, and this is the peel.

Its work is cooling and detoxifying, and it is used two ways. Internally it is a light summer herb, and it earns its keep as one of the six ingredients of Qing Luo Yin 清络饮 in the Wen Bing Tiao Bian — the minimal prescription of light, mostly fresh materials for the faint remainder of a summer-heat illness. Externally, decocted as a wash or applied fresh, it is a folk remedy for prickly heat, boils and small inflamed sores. It is a minor drug and the textbooks give it a short paragraph; this entry does not inflate it.

Nature & Flavor

Sweet · Cool

Channels

Lung · Spleen

Typical Dosage

9–15 g in decoction; larger amounts when fresh. External use in appropriate amounts, as a wash or applied to the affected area.
丝瓜皮Photography for this entry is on its way.

Actions

3 core actions

  • Clears heat, resolves toxinBoils, prickly heat, inflamed sores and small unnamed swellings — chiefly by external application of a decoction or the fresh peel.
  • Relieves summer heatLight enough to belong to the summer prescriptions. In Qing Luo Yin 清络饮 it sits with watermelon rind, fresh lablab flower, the rim of a fresh lotus leaf, fresh honeysuckle and bamboo leaf tips, for a faint fever and headache after a mild summer-heat illness has passed its peak.
  • The luffa familySi Gua Luo, the dried fibrous network, unblocks the channels and is the main drug; the flesh cools and resolves toxin; moves the bowels; and are used topically and for cough; for throat and skin complaints. The peel is the mildest of them.

In Formulas

Formulas containing Si Gua Pi

Indications & Clinical Uses

  • Prickly heat, boils and small inflamed sores, chiefly topically
    - The residue of a mild summer-heat illness, with faint fever and headache
    - Summer heat with thirst and irritability, as part of a light prescription
    - Minor wounds and skin irritation, as a wash

Western Medical Keywords

Searchable condition terms

Heat rashBoilsDermatitisHeat exhaustion

Contraindications

Cautions

  • Cool — not for cold patterns. Avoid in Spleen and Stomach cold-deficiency, loose stools and a pale tongue.
    - Never use a bitter luffa. This is the one genuinely important warning. A luffa or gourd that tastes bitter contains cucurbitacins, and bitter gourd poisoning is a documented cause of violent vomiting, abdominal pain, profuse diarrhoea and dehydration, occasionally severe. Taste a small piece: if it is bitter, discard the whole fruit, including the peel. Bitterness is the signal, and cooking does not remove it.
    - Wash it. The peel is the outside of the fruit and carries field soil and whatever was sprayed on it. Scrub it, and prefer produce you can trace.
    - A spreading skin infection is not a herb problem. Boils with spreading redness, fever, or a swelling that is getting worse need medical treatment. Topical herbs are for minor irritation.
    - A minor drug. It is not carried in the national pharmacopoeia and appears only briefly in the teaching texts; do not build a prescription around it.

Contraindicated in pregnancy: No specific prohibition. It is a mild, food-adjacent cooling herb, and topical use in pregnancy is generally unremarkable. It is cool, so avoid it internally in a pregnant woman with loose stools or who feels cold, and involve the treating practitioner.

For licensed practitioners’ reference only

References

  1. 丝瓜 enters the Chinese materia medica in the Ming 本草 literature and the peel is treated as one of several附药 alongside 丝瓜络; sources differ on which text first records it, and none is asserted here.
    2. Wen Bing Tiao Bian《温病条辨》— Qing Luo Yin (classical source, public domain).
    3. Bensky, Clavey & Stöger. Chinese Herbal Medicine: Materia Medica, 3rd ed.
    4. Cucurbitacin poisoning from bitter-tasting gourds is described in clinical toxicology reports; a bitter taste is the practical warning sign.

Professional reference notice. Entries are scholarly references for licensed TCM practitioners and students — not medical advice, and not a recommendation to self-prescribe. Chinese herbal formulas should be used under the guidance of a qualified practitioner. Content is an original editorial compilation by Cura x Cura, cross-checked against the cited references.