Sichuan was honored the titles “ homeland to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM)” and “TCM bank” since a long time ago. A saying in TCM circle explains the indispensable status of Sichuan TCMs, which goes “A prescription can never do without Sichuan medicines”. TCM material resources in Sichuan province involve countless varieties and wide distribution in massive reservations. Three quarters of the nation’s total varieties of medicine resources can be found in Sichuan province, including 4103 types of Chinese herbal medicines, 102 types of animal medicines, and mineral drugs 38 types. The overall reservation of TCM materials is estimated to be over 10 billion ton, the highest volume in the country, of which, phyto medicines total around one million tons, animal medicines 10,000-plus tons, and mineral drugs 10 billion tons. Of 6000-odd TCM material types in China, more than 4500 exist in Sichuan province; Sichuan also holds over 400 kinds of commonly used Chinese herbal medicines, out of the total 600-plus species in the whole country. The figures both pick up two thirds of the country’s total.
Currently, more than 20 counties are marked as TCM material bases in Sichuan province, using an area of over 3 million Mu (1 hm2=15 mu). The annual output of TCM materials (wild and labor-planted TCM materials) hits 80,000 tons or more, one third in the nation’s total. Approximately 50 kinds of high quality and trueborn TCM materials in Sichuan province take extensive applauses both from the country and abroad, for example, the materials growing on high mountains, like Chinese caterpillar fungus, tendrilleaf fritillary bulb and musk; dried ginger and turmeric root tuber, specialties along Minjiang river reaches, and axonite root of Jiangyou, dwarf lilyturf tuber of Mianyang, chuanxiong of Dujiangyan, Chinese goldthread of Hongya, dahurian angelica root of Suining, white peony root and danshen of Zhongjiang, medicinal cyathula toot of Tianquan, etc. More than a dozen of TCM materials are named with “chuan”, literally standing for “Sichuan”, such as chuanxiong, chuanbei, common monkshood mother root (pronounced as “chuanwu”), Coptis chinensis (chuan huanglian), acontum carmichaeli (chuan fuzi), and a handful of trueborn TCM materials growing in Sichuan have become famous with the medicine brands they depend on, such as Jiangyou axonite root, Santai dwarf lilyturf tuber, Zhongjiang danshen, Pingwu tuber of elevated gastrodia, Qingcheng musk, Maoxian yew, Sichuan fritillary bulb, Guangyuan eucommia bark, Hongya Chinese goldthread, Nanchong pinellia tuber, Chengdu chuanxiong and so on.
Ministry of Science and Technology of the People’s Republic of China has determined eight TCM materials (chuanxiong, aconite root, tendrilleaf fritillary bulb, Chinese goldthread, tuber of elevated gastrodia, pinellia tuber, tuber of dwarf lilyturf, Radix Asparagi) as the GAP research bases to look into the standardization production technology for TCM materials without social effects of pollution. As a result of that, the production and product quality will be elevated overwhelmingly, and high quality brands of Sichuan TCM materials will have been erected by that time.