Aster is also known as Qingyuan, Ziqian and so on. It is mainly produced in Hebei, Inner Mongolia and the three northeastern provinces in China, and is also distributed in North Korea, Japan and other places abroad. It usually grows in humid riverside areas. Aster is a traditional Chinese medicine, which has the effect of treating wind-cold cough, asthma, consumptive cough and vomiting pus and blood.

Aster is also called Qingyuan, Ziqian, Xiaozhu, etc.; Aster of the Compositae family is a perennial herb with an obliquely rising rhizome. The stem is upright, 40-50 cm high, sturdy, with fibrous dead leaf fragments at the base and often adventitious roots, with ribs and furrows.