Bai He is sweet, bland and slightly cold, and enters the Lung and Heart meridians. It has a moistening and lubricating property and can directly moisten the Lung and nourish the Yin. It is suitable for treating all kinds of dryness caused by Yin and body fluid deficiency of the Lung. It is particularly suitable for use in the condition where the Lung-Yin and Heart-Yin are both deficient as it can also nourish the Heart-Yin, which is often injured along with the Lung-Yin in febrile disease as the Lung and Heart are both located in the Upper-Jiao. It is also used for depression and sadness due directly to Lung-Yin and Lung-Qi deficiency. This herb can be used for a reasonably long period of time and can be added to the diet as it is a gentle herb with few side effects.

Bei Sha Shen is sweet, bland and slightly cold. It enters the Lung and Stomach meridians. It tonifies the Yin of the Lung in direct and indirect ways as it can nourish both the Lung-Yin and the Stomach-Yin. It can slightly tonify the Lung-Qi and is better used for conditions in which heat injures both the Yin and Qi.

Sheng Di Huang is sweet and cold, and enters the Kidney, Heart and Liver meridians. It can quite powerfully nourish the Yin of these organs and in this way can nourish the Lung-Yin indirectly. In addition, as it is quite a cold herb, and the fresh herb is bitter in taste, it can also reduce heat sufficiently. Sheng Di Huang is an excellent herb for use in conditions where the heat is injuring the Yin of the body. Another characteristic of this herb is that it can cool the blood and stop bleeding; because of this it is selected to treat the coughing of blood in conditions of Lung-Yin deficiency.

Tian Men Dong is sweet, bitter and very cold, and enters the Lung and Kidney meridians. It can strongly nourish the Lung-Yin and the Kidney-Yin and reduce heat. It is particularly used in severe and chronic conditions of Yin deficiency of these organs. Moreover, since it is quite cold and bitter and it can lubricate the intestines and soft stool, it is suitable for use when there is constipation. However, it should be avoided in conditions of weakness of Spleen-Qi and loose stool.

E Jiao is sweet and neutral, and enters the Liver and Kidney meridians. It is an important substance to nourish the Yin and blood and moisten the dryness. In the formula to treat Lung-Yin deficiency, it is suitable for treating chronic cough, dry cough and coughing of blood.

Xi Yang Shen is bitter, cold and slightly sweet, and enters the Heart, Lung and Kidney meridians. It is quite a strong herb for tonifying the Yin and Qi of these organs and is able to reduce heat. It is particularly useful in severe and chronic conditions of Yin and Qi deficiency of the Lung.

Dang Shen is sweet and neutral, and enters the Spleen and Lung meridians. It has no function in nourishing the Yin, but it can gently and sufficiently tonify the Lung-Qi. As it is neutral in temperature, it has no side effects of injuring the Yin when it tonifies the Lung-Qi. It is used in the condition where the Yin and Qi are both injured and when the Spleen and Stomach cannot bear very cold herbs in the process of tonifying the Yin.

These herbs are cold in temperature and enter the Lung meridian. They are able to descend the Lung-Qi and dissolve phlegm, so they can treat cough and shortness of breath. Of importance is the fact that all are moistening in nature and are particularly suitable for treating Lung-Yin deficiency. They can effectively treat dry cough and scanty phlegm. Unlike most of the pungent and warm herbs, they remove phlegm but do not cause dryness of the Lung.

Both herbs are sweet in taste and have a moistening nature; they can moisten the Lung and tonify the Spleen-Qi. In this way, they can harmonize the herbs in the formula and protect the Stomach and Spleen from cold herbs.