Bermuda Grass
Scientific Name: Cynodon dactylon (L.) Pers.
Family: Poaceae
MORPHOLOGY
Habit and Size: It is a perennial herbaceous plant, glaucous green in color, equipped with a long creeping rhizome and branched with epigeal stolons that root at the nodes, allowing it to quickly colonize the ground. It reaches a height of 10 to 40 cm.
Stems: The stems are prostrate-ascending.
Leaves: The leaves are linear, distichous, mostly basal, 3-3.5 mm wide, 3-5 cm long, with a canaliculate, rigid blade, ciliate with long spreading hairs especially near the sheath; the leaves of the sterile shoots are shorter and lanceolate.
Flowers: Terminal inflorescence composed of digitate spikes, 3-7, with a flattened, erect-spreading rachis, greenish or purplish, 3-4 cm long, inserted in an umbrella-like arrangement at the same point of the axis. Spikelets are uniflorous, 2 mm (with the rudiment of an abortive upper flower), ovate-oblong and laterally compressed, arranged unilaterally on the rachis. Blooms from May to September.
Fruits and Seeds: The fruit is a caryopsis with an adherent pericarp.
DISTRIBUTION AND HABITAT
Present throughout Italy, it grows in fallow lands, among hedges, in dry grassy areas, on trampled ground, and along roadsides, infesting crops, and grows from sea level up to 800 m.
USE
The rhizomes contain mucilages, sugars, starches, saponin-like substances, a glucoside of vanillin, and potassium salts. Creeping bermudagrass is used as an alternative or substitute drug for Couch Grass (Elymus repens), which has been used since time immemorial for its diuretic, purifying, anti-inflammatory, refreshing, and thirst-quenching properties. A decoction of creeping bermudagrass is an old traditional remedy for detoxifying the body in the spring. Due to its draining action, it is a good remedy for gout, arthritis, and rheumatism. Before taking any plant-based product (medicine or non-medicine) for therapeutic or similar purposes, it is always advisable to consult your doctor.
INTERESTING FACT
A curious application of creeping bermudagrass is to make an economical and refreshing beer from it. Dried and roasted rhizomes are a good substitute for coffee and do not have the contraindications of the latter. Cynodon dactylon is commonly used as a lawn grass for English gardens in dry climates. It also provides important fodder.
Photo: Under a free license by Saxifraga and Rutger Barendse, Jasenka Topic.
