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Actinoscirpus
Actinoscirpus is a monospecific genus in the family Cyperaceae which contains only the species Actinoscirpus grossus, the greater club rush. It is found across East and South Asia and is known in China as 大藨草; da biao cao, rumput menderong in Malaysian, and kasheruka within Ayurvedic medicine, which uses the tubers as an antiemetic and treatment for liver and digestive diseases. It is a perennial plant that grows rapidly with long rhizomes that end in small tubers. A. grossus is considered a "principal" weed of rice in some Southeast Asian countries. It is abundant in swampy or inundated areas, such as marshes and ditches, and is capable of dominating wetlands and rice patties. It is also a host of Chilo polychrysus, the dark-headed rice borer.
The tubers of A. grossus are used in folk medicine as a treatment for liver disease, although experimental evidence to support this is limited. Ganapathi et al. (2018) showed a protective effect of ethanolic extract of the A. grossus tubers when treating ethanol-induced hepatotoxicity in rats; treatment of the extract significantly restored the liver enzymes, reduced lipid peroxidation, and restored altered catalase and glutathione peroxidase activity.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Actinoscirpus by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts are shared under the same licence.
