Lalang grass rhizome is the dried rhizome of the plant Imperata cylindrica, belonging to the Poaceae family. It is wild-harvested and produced throughout the country. The original plant grows on sunny dry grasslands or hillsides along roadsides. It thrives in warm and humid climates, prefers sunlight, and is drought-tolerant, growing well on slopes or flatlands. It has a sweet taste and a cold nature. It enters the lung, stomach, and bladder meridians. Its effects include cooling blood and stopping bleeding, as well as clearing heat and promoting diuresis. Clinical names include lalang grass rhizome and charred lalang grass rhizome.
bubble_chart Compendium of Materia Medica
Shennong Bencao Jing: Sweet in taste and cold in nature. It treats fatigue and deficiency, tonifies the middle and replenishes qi, removes static blood, blood stagnation, chills and fever, and promotes urination.
Mingyi Bielu: Non-toxic. It treats five types of strangury, removes guest heat in the intestines and stomach, quenches thirst, strengthens tendons, and treats menorrhagia in women. Long-term use benefits the body.
Yaoxing Lun: Mao needle, a minister herb. It breaks blood stasis and treats consumptive thirst. The root treats five types of strangury; decoct and take the juice.
Rihuazi Bencao: Cool in nature. It treats irregular menstruation in women, unblocks blood vessels, and alleviates strangury.
Kaibao Bencao: Sweet in taste, cold in nature, and non-toxic. It treats five types of strangury, removes guest heat in the intestines and stomach, quenches thirst, strengthens tendons, and treats menorrhagia in women.
Bencao Gangmu: Lalang grass rhizome is sweet and can remove latent heat, promote urination, and thus stop various types of bleeding, hiccups, wheezing, and consumptive thirst. It is an excellent remedy for jaundice and edema. People often overlook it due to its mild nature, relying instead on harsh, bitter-cold remedies that damage the peaceful qi. How can they understand this?
It stops vomiting and nosebleeds, treats hiccups from cold damage, wheezing from lung heat, edema, jaundice, and alcohol toxicity.Bencao Jingshu: Mao root is imbued with the earth's vital energy and the life-giving energy of spring sunlight, hence its sweet taste, cold nature, and non-toxicity. It enters the hand Shaoyin, foot Taiyin, and Yangming meridians. Fatigue and deficiency must involve internal heat; sweetness can tonify the spleen, and even though it is cold, it does not harm the stomach. Sweet and cold properties can remove internal heat, hence it treats fatigue and deficiency. Tonifying the spleen thus strengthens the middle, removing heat thus replenishes qi, and sweetness benefits blood. Blood heat leads to stasis, stasis leads to stagnation, stagnation leads to chills and fever. Cold cools blood, sweetness benefits blood, removing heat harmonizes blood, and harmonized blood resolves stasis and stagnation, thus stopping chills and fever. Difficulty in urination is due to internal heat; resolving heat naturally promotes urination. Strangury is caused by deficiency heat in the blood aspect; cooling and benefiting blood naturally cures strangury, and guest heat in the intestines and stomach is resolved, body fluids are generated, and thirst is quenched. The liver stores blood and governs tendons; tonifying blood and cooling the liver strengthens tendons. Blood heat causes flooding; cooling and harmonizing blood naturally cures flooding. Blood heat causes reckless movement, leading to vomiting, coughing, nosebleeds, and gum bleeding; cooling and harmonizing blood naturally resolves these symptoms. Tonifying the spleen, strengthening the middle, and promoting urination also treat edema, jaundice, and hiccups from cold damage.
Contraindications: Hiccups due to cold, vomiting from cold in the middle, fever from damp phlegm and retained fluids should not be treated with this herb.Bencao Mengquan: Sweet in taste, cold in nature. Non-toxic. It treats strangury and promotes urination, unblocks stagnation and removes static blood. It removes guest heat in the intestines and stomach, stops vomiting and nosebleeds due to fatigue. It quenches thirst, strengthens tendons, and tonifies the middle and replenishes qi.
《Materia Medica Cheng Ya》: The thatch is a humble thing, yet its uses can be significant. It is soft in body but straight in nature, hence the ancient kings used it as a mat. The Yi Jing mentions using white thatch as a mat, which is without blame, as the image suggests softness beneath. The Dui metal is above, the Xun softness is below, and the softness adorns the center. Proceeding with caution in this method, there will be no loss. Truly, yin within yang, it enters the hand Taiyin lung, and within sees the Yangming middle treatment method, to circulate nutrient-defense yin-yang. The Taiyin lung, beginning from the middle energizer, is bright and beautiful within, cautious in the center, spreading qi forth, thus there is no loss, hence it supplements the center, qi is then benefited, fatigue is then restored, injury is then continued, deficiency is then made substantial, emaciation is then filled. As well as removing static blood blockages, cold and heat convenience, all achieve the merit of spreading forth and the auspicious signs. Bielu It widely benefits convenience, and the five stranguries, static blood, and menorrhagia, fatigue injury and emaciation, and strengthens tendons and hardens bones, fattens muscles and tightens the flesh. The Daming widely treats blood blockages, and irregular menstruation, dripping blood vessels. The Zhouhou suggests chewing thatch root to avoid grains and not die, also widely tonifying the middle and replenishing qi. Pang An-chang treats warm diseases with latent heat inside, causing chest fullness and vomiting hiccups, due to great diarrhea with heat. The root of the plant establishes the middle internally, Pueraria Root urgently raises yin qi, further expanding Mr. Zhongjing's Pueraria Decoction method, spreading qi from the center, dispersing from the muscles. The Zhouhou treats edema after deficiency, due to life gate fire decline, edema due to kidney deficiency, Rice Bean governs the heart grain of kidney water, with the brightness of thatch root, burning fuel under the cauldron, inhaling and exhaling lung qi, nutrient-defense is then led, the water path is then walked. If jaundice, dietary jaundice, fatigue jaundice, yellow sweat, stony edema, color changes in the skin, signs appearing on the skin, the pig as a water animal, with thatch root as the sovereign, also widely treats water methods from the Zhouhou, but the former method leans to the right, this one also includes the left. If the Qianjin relieves alcohol poisoning, fearing the rotting of the viscera, drink thatch root juice to cleanse the middle energizer, still needing the assistance of Pueraria Flower, thinking it more miraculous. If apoplexy five corpses, causing damage to the living yang type, for abdominal pain and urgent distension unable to rest, rushing up to the chest and heart, attacking the sides of the ribs, pulling and surging corpse ghosts causing harm, benefit with strong metal, burn with thatch fire, chase and seek thoroughly, let the living yang die to the dead yin, strengthen the skeleton to turn the middle qi, aid the middle qi to raise the skeleton, feed and receive skin, none without merit, using white thatch, what blame is there, utmost caution.
Yaoxing Jie: Imperatae Rhizoma, sweet in taste, cold in nature, non-toxic, enters the stomach and small intestine meridians. It expels static blood, unblocks blood stasis, stops vomiting and nosebleeds, alleviates five types of strangury, promotes urination, regulates labor injuries, tonifies deficiency and emaciation, removes guest heat from the intestines and stomach, and treats women's menorrhagia and metrostaxis.Note: Imperatae Rhizoma promotes water discharge, primarily entering the small intestine, while the stomach is its pathway of transmission, hence it also enters the stomach.
Jingyue Quanshu : Sweet and cool in taste, pure and beautiful in nature, it can tonify the middle and replenish qi, making it an excellent medicine. It is good at regulating blood disorders, including hematemesis, nosebleeds, static blood, blood stasis, and women's irregular menstruation, metrorrhagia and metrostaxis. It also alleviates five types of strangury, removes guest heat, quenches thirst, strengthens bones and tendons, treats lung heat hiccup, counterflow panting, resolves alcohol toxicity and jaundice edema, and is highly beneficial when taken over time. For treating Yongju boils and toxins, as well as various toxins, sores, and blood disorders, either mash the root for topical application, boil it to make a juice for mixing with toxic medicines, or boil it with wine for oral consumption, all of which are acceptable. There are several types of Imperatae, found everywhere, but the white variety is the best. In spring, it sprouts needles that spread across the ground, hence called "mao zhen," which can be eaten raw and is very beneficial for children, with similar functions.
Bencao Beiyao : Drains fire, tonifies the middle, stops bleeding, and stops hiccups.
Sweet and cold. Enters the hand Shaoyin (Heart) and foot Taiyin, Yangming (Spleen, Stomach). Tonifies the middle and replenishes qi, removes latent heat, disperses static blood, promotes urination, and resolves alcohol toxicity. Treats vomiting, nosebleeds, and various blood disorders, blazing of heart-liver fire, which forces blood upward, causing hematemesis; lung fire excess, causing nosebleeds. Imperatae Rhizoma harmonizes blood with its sweetness, cools blood with its cold nature, and directs fire downward, hence treating these conditions. For static blood from injuries, mash and extract the juice for consumption, called "Mao Hua Tang," also treats epistaxis and postpartum strangury. Blood stasis causing cold and heat, blood stasis leads to blockage, and blockage causes cold and heat. Dribbling menorrhagia, blood heat causing flooding. Cold-damage disease hiccup, which is hiccup. "Shuowen" says: hiccup is rebellious qi. Dongyuan considered it severe retching, which is not accurate. Lung heat panting, internal heat and thirst, jaundice edema. Clears fire and promotes water. Shizhen said: It is an excellent medicine. People overlook it due to its mildness, only resorting to bitter and cold remedies, damaging peaceful qi. How can they understand this!
Benjing Fengyuan : Sweet and cold, it descends, removes latent heat, promotes urination, quenches thirst, treats cold-damage disease hiccup and panting, stops vomiting, nosebleeds, and various bleeding, treats jaundice edema, regurgitation and upward qi, five types of strangury with heat and pain, and smallpox with dry purple non-eruption, but vomiting and nosebleeds due to cold are not suitable. Benjing treats labor injuries and deficiency emaciation, as its sweet and cold nature nourishes deficiency heat without harming stomach qi. Tonifying the middle and replenishing qi, stomach heat is removed and middle qi is restored, referring to intruding pathogens damaging the middle region, gradually leading to deficiency emaciation, not suitable for labor injury's root condition. Ancient people examined materia medica functions, saying Imperatae Rhizoma is similar to Bai Mai Gen. Now Suzhou does not offer annual tribute, Bai Mai Gen is unavailable, but Imperatae Rhizoma suffices for quenching thirst and removing heat. Its flower, sweet and warm, white and light, rises into the lung, disperses heat, and stops nosebleeds. Decayed thatch from roofs, ground and applied to wet and festering sores, utilizes its dampness-absorbing power.
Bencao Chongyuan : White Imperatae, white in color and sweet in taste, firm above and soft below, with roots rich in juice, embodies the qi transformation of earth's mutual generation between metal and water. It treats labor injuries and emaciation, as internal damage from overwork leads to body fluids not nourishing the exterior, causing emaciation. Imperatae Rhizoma, embodying water essence and rich in juice, treats labor injuries and emaciation. Tonifying the middle and replenishing qi, as internal deficiency of the middle earth leads to insufficient qi. Imperatae Rhizoma, embodying earth qi and sweet in taste, tonifies the middle and replenishes qi. Dispelling static blood and blood stasis, as liver qi deficiency leads to blood not nourishing the meridians, causing static blood and blood stasis. Imperatae Rhizoma, embodying metal qi and white in color, dispels static blood and blood stasis. Lung metal qi reaching the skin and hair, cold and heat naturally resolve. Skin and hair qi descending to the bladder, urination naturally improves.
Bencao Qiuzhen : [Comment] Clears stomach fire, disperses static blood, promotes water passage.
Mao Gen specifically enters the stomach and liver. It is sweet in taste and cold in nature, clearing heat and purging fire, eliminating stasis and promoting diuresis. All bitter and cold medicines inevitably harm qi and damage the stomach. This medicine, with its sweet taste and pure nature, specifically treats blood disorders. All conditions such as hematemesis, epistaxis, blood stasis, blood stranguria, menorrhagia, amenorrhea, hiccups, wheezing, restlessness, thirst, jaundice, and edema, caused by heat or fire, are relieved by this medicine as it removes heat and regulates blood, extinguishes fire, and dissipates qi and water. Hematemesis due to blazing heart-liver fire, forcing blood upward, and epistaxis due to lung fire, should both be treated with this medicine, decocted with water and taken warm. Alternatively, it can be ground into powder and taken with rice water. It also detoxifies alcohol, preventing damage to the five zang-organs, by drinking a liter of Mao Gen juice. For ulcers Yongju and boils, either mash the root for topical application or boil it to make a juice for mixing with other detoxifying medicines, or even boil with wine. This medicine is sweet without clogging the diaphragm, cold without harming the middle, making it suitable for treating deficiency and external invasions of the middle region. Li Shizhen said: It is a good medicine. People often overlook it due to its mild nature, only resorting to bitter and cold medicines that damage the harmonious qi, how can they understand this? As for its ability to tonify the middle and replenish qi, although mentioned in Benjing, it is merely because stomach heat is removed and middle qi naturally recovers, not truly a tonic. The interpretation of the classics seems unreliable.
Depei Bencao: Sweet, cold. Enters the hand Shaoyin and Taiyin, also enters the foot Taiyin and Yangming meridians. Good at regulating blood disorders. Treats vomiting, nosebleeds, various types of bleeding, static blood, blood stasis, irregular menstruation, menorrhagia. Removes hidden heat, thirst, stomach heat hiccups, lung heat asthma. Reduces edema, jaundice, promotes urination, detoxifies alcohol.
Combined with Pueraria Root, treats warm disease heat hiccups. Juice cooked with pork treats five types of jaundice; root combined with loquat leaf treats cold hiccups. Caused by excessive heat drinking water, sudden onset of cold hiccups.
Stops bleeding, treats postpartum urinary issues, flowers are also effective. For unruptured abscesses, use needles, decocted with wine, one needle ruptures one hole, two needles rupture two holes. Reduces static blood, soaked in child's urine and mashed for juice.
Benjing Shuzheng: The plant, when its roots are pulled, they cling together, hence the name 'Ru', meaning clinging together. Observing the plant, it grows in poor soil, where the soil is tilted, the plant causes collapse, as its roots cling together, making the soil cohesive. It does not grow in low-lying waterlogged areas, where it grows, water does not accumulate, as its body is smooth and can drain water. Yet it grows in dry soil but is rich in moisture, thrives in spring and summer but is white in color, its flowers are fluffy white and shiny, blooms in early summer, leaves remain red after withering, even when burned, it does not wilt, it gains thick yin in extreme yang, and strong yang in extreme yin. Because it gains thick yin in extreme yang, it can tonify the middle and replenish qi in cases of fatigue and deficiency; because it gains strong yang in extreme yin, it can remove cold and heat in cases of static blood stasis. Those who need tonifying the middle and replenishing qi due to fatigue and deficiency, must have fire scorching the earth, and the earth not cohesive; those who have cold and heat due to static blood stasis, must have yang misting the yin and yin not submitting, the earth not cohesive is the initial stage of collapse, yin not submitting is the sign of fighting yang, growing in hard soil, densely connected, clinging together, and rich in moisture, making yin move within, yang disperse outside, thus the earth benefits and develops, yin harmonizes with yang and resolves disputes. Called tonifying deficiency, not actually tonifying deficiency, aiding yin qi within yang, then yang naturally does not lean towards hardness and cannot transform qi; called promoting blood, not actually promoting blood, harmonizing yang qi within yin, then yin naturally does not accumulate anger, and does not fight with yang. Otherwise, Bielu is the highlight of Benjing, it responds to fatigue and deficiency tonifying the middle and replenishing qi, then it says removes guest heat, in the intestines and stomach stops thirst and strengthens tendons, it responds to static blood stasis cold and heat, then it says women's menorrhagia, promotes urination, which is its ability to not accumulate water, its shoots drain water, which is especially effective in promoting urination.
White thatch sprouts in early spring, blooms in summer, uses its roots, harvested in June, is it not because it starts with wood, thrives with fire, completes with earth? Thus the taste is sweet, sweet is specific to earth, yet when fire and earth are in command, it does not inherit their dryness-heat, but retains its sweet-cold, it can inherit clear and harmonious yin within extreme yang, and with clear and harmonious yin, convey the transformation of extreme yang. Observing Benjing, is it not because it enriches yin and harmonizes yang? Certainly not because it is capable of promoting and stopping, but also not because it stops accumulation, its ability to move and stop, is yang from outside relying on yin, yin from within rising yang, flowing and stopping, responding appropriately. Even saying its sweet-cold can harmonize blood, blood harmonized and passage unimpeded, is still a shallow view of the sages' words. The key is heat dispersing and yin harmonizing, yin harmonizing and yang more pronounced. Because yang in heaven without yin cannot transform, just as yin on earth without yang also cannot transform.
Bencao Fenjing: Sweet, cold. Enters the heart, spleen, and stomach. Cools blood, reduces stasis, removes heat, promotes urination, directs fire downward.
Yixue Zhongzhong Canxilu: Taste sweet, nature cool, hollow with nodes, best at dispersing zang-fu organs' stagnant heat, expelling smallpox toxins; also good at promoting urination, relieving pain from difficult urination, short urine due to heat, abdominal distension and fullness, body swelling; also enters the lungs to clear heat and calm cough and asthma; because it tastes sweet, and fresh ones chewed are juicy, it can enter the stomach enriching yin to promote fluid production and quench thirst, and treat lung and stomach heat, expectoration of blood, hematemesis, nosebleeds, blood in urine, but must use fresh ones for best effect. Before spring and after autumn, when cut, it tastes sweet, when it sprouts and grows lush, the taste is not sweet, used then it is also effective, far better than dried.
Thatch needles: that is, thatch sprouts, just sprouted not yet out of the ground, shaped like large needles, its nature is the same as thatch root, but slightly stronger in breaking blood stasis. For sores with unruptured pus, boil thatch needles and take, the sore will rupture, one needle ruptures one hole, two needles rupture two holes.
bubble_chart Modern Pharmacology
- Lalang grass rhizome has hemostatic effects, which can shorten bleeding and clotting time.
- The water extract of lalang grass rhizome can reduce vascular permeability.
- Lalang grass rhizome has diuretic effects.
- The decoction of lalang grass rhizome inhibits Shigella flexneri and Shigella sonnei in vitro.
- The water-alcohol condensed extract of lalang grass rhizome increases the uptake of 86Rb in mouse myocardium.