The Medicinal Herb Info site was created to help educate visitors about the often forgotten wisdom of the old ways of treating illnesses. Many of today's drugs and medicines were originally derived from natural ingredients, combinations of plants and other items found in nature.

We are not suggesting that you ignore the help of trained medical professionals, simply that you have additional options available for treating illnesses. Often the most effective treatment involves a responsible blend of both modern and traditional treatments.

We wish you peace and health!

Quack Grass

Contents:

Common Names | Parts Usually Used | Plant(s) & Culture | Where Found | Medicinal Properties | Biochemical Information
Uses | Formulas or Dosages | Warning | Bibliography

Scientific Names

Quack Grass

  • Agropyron repens L.
  • Triticum repens
  • Gramineae
  • Grass family

Common Names

  • Agropyrum
  • Couch grass
  • Dog grass
  • Durfa grass
  • Mai-hu
  • Quick grass
  • Twitch
  • Twitch grass
  • Triticum grass
  • Witch grass

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Parts Usually Used

Rootstock, rhizome
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Description of Plant(s) and
Culture

Grass; to 3 feet.  Spreads on creeping yellow rhizomes.  Leaves soft, flat, somewhat drooping; crowded with fine ribs.  Flower spike not square as in most Agropyron species.  2-9 pale yellow, smooth, flowered spikelets; bract below spikelets not stiff, with slender keel and ribs.  The spikes resemble wheat or rye when in bloom.
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Where Found

Found in fields, gardens.  Troublesome weed throughout United States.  Native Eurasian.
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Medicinal Properties

Diuretic, aperient, demulcent, emollient
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Biochemical Information

A mucilaginous substance, triticine which is a fructosan, an antibiotic substance that is derived from agropyrene, vanilloside (glucovanilline) and mineral salts, sugar and silicic acid
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Uses

Native Americans used the tea as a diuretic for kidney gravel, nephritis and urinary incontinence, acne, cystitis, gout, enlarged prostate, jaundice, rheumatism, tuberculosis, fever, lumbago, dietary food for diabetics, dropsy, gall stones, syphilis, blood purifier, stomach stimulant, worm repellent, a wash for swollen limbs.  In famines, roots have served to make breadstuffs; scorched as coffee substitute.  Roots sometimes chewed like licorice. 

Considered an antidote to arrow poisons in Africa.
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Formulas or Dosages

Infusion: take 1 oz. couch grass to 1 pint of boiling water.  Steep 20 minutes and give in wineglassful doses every 2 hours.

Decoction: boil 1 oz. of the herb in 1 pint of water until reduced to 3/4 pint, give 10-20 drops in water two or more times a day.

Juice: take 1 tbsp. 3 times per day.

Liquid extract:  1/2 to 1 tsp. is given in a glass of hot water, 2 or 3 times per day.

Tincture:  take 10 to 20 drops in water 2 or more times a day. To help pass calculi, use a maximum off 40 to 60 drops in hot water.
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Warning

Don’t grow couch grass in your back yard, it is so prolific it will over grow everything.
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Bibliography

Buy It! Eastern/Central Medicinal Plants, by Steven Foster and James A. Duke., Houghton Mifflin Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10000

Buy It! The Herbalist Almanac, by Clarence Meyer, Meyerbooks, publisher, PO Box 427, Glenwood, Illinois 60425, copyright 1988, fifth printing, 1994

Buy It! The Nature Doctor: A Manual of Traditional and Complementary Medicine, by Dr. H.C.A. Vogel; Keats Publishing, Inc., 27 Pine Street (Box 876) New Canaan, CT. 06840-0876. Copyright Verlag A. Vogel, Teufen (AR) Switzerland 1952, 1991

Buy It! The Herb Book, by John Lust, Bantam Books, 666 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY. copyright 1974.

Buy It! Planetary Herbology, by Michael Tierra, C.A., N.D., O.M.D., Lotus Press, PO Box 325, Twin Lakes. WI 53181., Copyright 1988, published 1992

Buy It! The Complete Medicinal Herbal, by Penelope Ody, Dorling Kindersley, Inc, 232 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, First American Edition, copyright 1993

Buy It!The Magic of Herbs, by David Conway, published by Jonathan Cape, Thirty Bedford Square, London, England. (Out of print)

Buy It! The Rodale Herb Book: How to Use, Grow, and Buy Nature’s Miracle Plants (An Organic gardening and farming book), edited by William H. Hylton, Rodale Press, Inc. Emmaus, PA, 18049., 1974

Buy It! Old Ways Rediscovered, by Clarence Meyer, Meyerbooks, publisher, PO Box 427, Glenwood, Illinois 60425, published from 1954, print 1988

Buy It! The Complete Medicinal Herbal, by Penelope Ody, Dorling Kindersley, Inc, 232 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, First American Edition, copyright 1993

Buy It! Indian Herbalogy of North America, by Alma R. Hutchens, Shambala Publications, Inc., Horticultural Hall, 300 Massachusetts Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, 1973

Buy It! Webster’s New World Dictionary, Third College Edition, Victoria Neufeldt, Editor in Chief, New World Dictionaries: A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., 15 Columbus Circle, New York, NY 10023

Buy It! An Instant Guide to Medicinal Plants, by Pamela Forey and Ruth Lindsay, Crescent Books (January 27, 1992).

Buy It! Secrets of the Chinese Herbalists, by Richard Lucas, Parker Publishing Company, Inc., West Nyack, NY, 1987.

Buy It! The Rodale Herb Book: How to Use, Grow, and Buy Nature’s Miracle Plants (An Organic gardening and farming book), edited by William H. Hylton, Rodale Press, Inc. Emmaus, PA, 18049., 1974

Buy It! The Healing Plants, by Mannfried Pahlow, Barron’s Educational Series, Inc. 250 Wireless Blvd., Hauppauge, NY 11788, 1992

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