RHIZOMA GRAMINIS. 729 



making tatties or screens, which are placed in windows and doorways, 

 and when wetted, diffuse an agi'eeable odour and coohiess. It is also 

 used for making ornamental baskets and many small articles, and has 

 some reputaticm as a medicine. 



RHIZOMA GRAMINIS. 



Radix Graminis; Couch Grass, Quitch (h'oss. Dog's Grass; F. Chien- 

 dent commun on Petit Chiendent; G. Queckenwurzel, Grasivurzel. 



Botanical Origin — Agrojyyi'um repens P. Beauv. (Triticum re- 

 j)ens L.), a widely diffused weed, growing in fields and waste places in 

 all parts of Europe, in Northern Asia down to the region south of the 

 Caspian, also in North America; and in South America to Patagonia 

 and TieiTa del Fuego. 



History — The ancients were familiar with a grass tenned''Ay/xi>crTi9 

 and Grarnen, having a creeping rootstock like that under notice. It is 

 impossible to determine to what species the plant is refemble, though it 

 is probable that the grass Cynodon Dactykm Pers., as well as Agropyrum 

 repens, was included under these names. 



Dioscorides asserts that its root taken in the form of decoction, is a 

 useful remedy in suppression of urine and vesical calculus. The same 

 statements are made by Pliny ; and again occur in the writings of Ori- 

 basius^ and Marcellus Empiricus' in the 4th, and of Aetius^ in the 6th 

 century, and are repeated in the mediaeval herbals,* where also figures 

 of the plant may be found, as for instance in Dodonaeus. The drug is 

 also met with in the German pharmaceutical tariffs of the 16th century. 

 Turner^ and Gerarde both ascribe to a decoction of gra.ss root diuretic 

 and lithontriptic virtues. The drug is still a domestic remedy in great 

 repute in France, being taken as a demulcent and sudorific in the form 

 of tisane. 



Description — Couch-grass has a, long, stiff, pale yellow, smooth 

 rhizome, yV of ^^ i^^h in diameter, creeping close under the surface of 

 the ground, occasionally branching, marked at intervals of about an inch 

 by nodes, which bear slender branching roots and the remains of sheath- 

 ing rudimentary leaves. 



As found in the shops, the rhizome is always free from rootlets, cut 

 into short lengths of ^ to ^ of an inch, and dried. It is thus in the fonn 

 of little, shining, straw-coloured, many-edged, tubular pieces, which are 

 without odour, but have a slightly sweet taste. 



Microscopic Structure — A transverse section of this rhizome shows 

 two different portions of tissue, separated by the so-called nucleus-sheath. 

 The latter consists of an unbroken ring of prismatic cells, analogous to 

 those occurring in sarsaparilla. In Rhizoma Grajninis, the outer part 

 of the tissue exhibits a diffuse circle of about 20 liber bundles, and the 

 interior part about the same number of fibro-vascular bundles more 



^ De virtute shnplicium, cap. i. (Agrostis). decoctionis ejus . . . valet contra dissuriam 



- De medicamentU, cap. xxvi. . . . et frangit lapidem et curat vnlnera 



^ Tetrabibli primse, sermo i. vesicae et provocat urinam . . . . " 



* As in the Hcrharius PatavicB printed in ' HerbaU, part 2, 1568. 13. 

 1485, in which it is said of Grarnen — " aqua 



