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Never use this or any other herb without first consulting your Doctor!

CALAMUS

Acorus calamus
Araceae
(sweet flag, sweet sedge,Sweet grass, Sweet rush, Myrtle flag, Bee wort)

Parts used: Rhizome
Energy and Flavors: Acrid, slightly warm, aromatic.
Systems Affected: heart, liver, spleen-stomach
Biochemical constituents: essential oil, amino acid, organic acid, sugar.
Properties: Stimulant, carminative, antispasmodic, expectorant, emetic.

Calamus
Calamus Identification:

Calamus (or sometimes called Sweet Flag) is a perennial plant that grows more or less abundantly throughout the northern hemisphere, inhabiting pond edges, marshes, swamps, and the banks of rivers and streams. It's horizontal, creeping rootstock, which may grow to be 5 feet long, produces sword-shaped leaves from 2 to 6-feet high and also a keeled or ridged flower stalk which bears a cylindrical spadix covered by minute greenish-yellow flowers.

Flowers: May - August

Calamus is an invaluable remedy for hyperacidity associated with the stomach and intestines. It has a beneficial effect on the liver and can also be used in the treatment of flatulenece, colic, dyspepsia and most diseases of the stomach, intestines and liver.

Calamus root has been used by people of Asian cultures since ancient times. In India, it is commonaly sold as a condiment-spice like ginger and is used for diseases of the nervous system. Ayuredic medicine emphasizes the use of calamus root to incress mental focus (probably by focusing the digestive power), and as such it is used as an antidote to smoking marijuana ( some even include some dried and ground calamus in their marijuana mixture ). Perhaps it is from this tradition that it has been found that chewing calamus root would aid in quitting the tobacco habit as the combination of the two seems to cause mild nausea and distaste for tobacco. The cobination of gotu kola for clearing the mind and relieving mental tension and calamus for helping to focus it is standard treatment for the central nervous system in Ayurveda.

In China calamus root is considered to have antiarrythmic, hypotensive, vasodilatory, antitussive, antibacterial and expectorant properties. It has shown to be of low toxicity in animals and adverse reactions are rare. Though recent studies have revealed the presence of B-asarone, a carcinogen, the American variety is considered superior to the European because it seems to lack this ingredient. While calamus is frquently mentioned in the Bible, it is likely refers to another plant species, not A. calamus.

The Native Americans would chew the root while running long distances to incress endurance and stemina. Externally it is added to the bath to quiet the nerves and induce a state of tranquillity. Tincture of calamus is useful as a parasiticide when directly and frequently applied to lice and scabies infestations.

Callamus does have emmenagogic properties and should be avoided during pregnancy.

Dose:1 teaspoon of the dried root steeped in a cup of water; of the tincture 10-30 drops; in formula, 3-9 grams

Calamus root is used for: lack of mental focus, stomach problems, acidity, an aid to quit marijuana and tobacco smoking.

Description: Calamus is a perennial herb, in habit somewhat resemblingthe Iris, with a long, indefinite, branched, cylindrical rhizome immersed in the mud, usually smaller than that of the Iris, about the thickness of a finger and emitting numerous roots. The erect leaves are yellowish-green, 2 to 3 feet in length, few, all radical, sheathing at their bases (which are pink), swordshaped, narrow and flat, tapering into a long, acute point, the edges entire, but wavy or crimped. The leaves are much like those of Iris, but may readily be distinguished from these and from all others by the peculiar crimped edges and their aromatic odour when bruised.

The scape or flower-stem arises from the axils of the outer leaves, which it much resembles, but is longer and solid and triangular. From one side, near the middle of its length, projecting upwards at an angle, from the stem, it sends out a solid, cylindrical, blunt spike or spadix, tapering at each end, from 2 to 4 inches in length, often somewhat curved and densely crowded with very small greenish-yellow flowers. Each tiny flower contains six stamens enclosed in a perianth with six divisions and surrounding a threecelled, oblong ovary with a sessile stigma. The flowers are sweet-scented and so formed that cross-pollination is ensured, but the plant is not usually fertile in the British Isles, as it is in Asia, the proper insects being absent here. The fruit, which does not ripen inEurope, is a berry, being full of mucus, which falls when ripe into the water or to the ground, and is thus dispersed, but it fruits sparingly everywhere and propagates itself mainly by the rapid growth of its spreading rhizome. It is easily distinguished from all other British plants by its peculiar spadix, which appears in June and July, and by the fragrance of its roots, stems and leaves.

In most localities the flowers are not very abundantly produced: it never flowers unless actually growing in water.

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