Phoenix-Tail Fern (Pteris multifida): A Common Hemostatic and Analgesic TCM Herb for Cancer Patients

I first came to know phoenix-tail fern when, on a herb-gathering trip with my father, I spotted a clump of it growing by a roadside gully. My father told me this herb was called phoenix-tail fern, and he mentioned a liver-cancer patient in our village whose final days had been relieved by drinking a decoction of this fern for pain—it replaced morphine as the analgesic—and whose survival had even been prolonged.

Later, the son of a lung-cancer patient from Jiangsu came to me with a photograph of the herb, asking me what on earth it was. In his area he had seen a folk herbalist selling this grass to many bleeding-disorder patients across Jiangsu, Shanghai and Zhejiang to stop hemorrhage; reportedly, bleeding disorders that could not be cured in major hospitals were brought under control after taking phoenix-tail fern. I confirmed to him that it was phoenix-tail fern.

Phoenix-tail fern is a fern; because its fronds resemble a phoenix's tail, it is called phoenix-tail grass. It commonly grows along farmland ditches and gullies, beneath the eaves of houses, and is also frequently found in mountain shrubbery.

Inexpensive yet effective, phoenix-tail fern has been one of the hemostatic and detumescent herbs I have used frequently in recent years. As it is mainly used by folk herbalists, it is rarely recorded in ancient TCM classics, though it appears often in local folk-herb records.

In the past pharmacies rarely carried it; in recent years large TCM pharmacies in first-tier cities such as Beijing have begun to stock phoenix-tail fern.

According to folk clinical experience, phoenix-tail fern is mainly used for hematuria, hematochezia and hemorrhoidal bleeding. It may be used alone or combined with Ecliptae Herba (hanliancao), Sophorae Flos (huaihua) and Imperatae Rhizoma (baimaogen); it has the function of cooling blood and stopping bleeding.

Phoenix-tail fern may also be used for diarrhea and dysentery caused by damp-heat, cloudy painful urination, leukorrhea in women, and jaundice; it clears heat and drains dampness, stops diarrhea and leukorrhea, and relieves strangury and resolves jaundice.

In addition, phoenix-tail fern may be used for heat-toxin-type malignant tumors and has a degree of anticancer action; it is often combined with Lobeliae Chinensis Herba (banbianlian), Scutellariae Barbatae Herba (banzhilian) and Oldenlandiae Diffusae Herba (baihua sheshe cao). An alcoholic extract of the whole herb or root of phoenix-tail fern, administered intraperitoneally, markedly inhibits mouse sarcoma S180. In my own experience, phoenix-tail fern may work best against tumors of the urinary and reproductive systems and of the digestive tract.

Modern clinical research has found phoenix-tail fern also effective in treating infectious hepatitis and acute bacillary dysentery.

When treating cancer patients with bleeding and pain, I generally combine phoenix-tail fern with hemostatics such as Bletillae Rhizoma (baiji). Because phoenix-tail fern is cheap and readily available, combining it allows reducing the dose of costly materials like baiji, lowering the patient's medication cost.

According to TCM theory, phoenix-tail fern is cooling and cold in nature; patients with spleen-stomach deficiency-cold should not use it for prolonged periods.