The medicinals are categorized according to the alphabetical order of herbs' pinyin names. A description of each medicinal covers the source for the medicinal, area of cultivation or wildcrafting, preparation, chemical constituents, pharmacological actions, Chinese medicinal properties, actions and indication as well as suggested dosages. This is accompanied by colour plates illustrating the main and alternate species used for each medicinal.Volume I(A to G) contains 169 entries of Chinese medicinals, including such important herbs as ai ye, ban xia, chuan xiong, da zao, e jiao, fang feng and gan cao.