''Cymbopogon schoenanthus'', the camel grass, camel's hay, straw of Mecca, fever grass, geranium grass, or West Indian lemon grass, is a herbal plant of Southern Asia and

Northern Africa North Africa (sometimes Northern Africa) is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region. However, it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of t ...

, with fragrant foliage.

Uses

''Cymbopogon schoenanthus'' is often made into a common herbal tea. ''C. schoenanthus'' oil (called lemongrass oil or camel grass oil) is also used as a tonic and fragrance additive in personal care and cosmetic products such as hair dye, shampoo/conditioner, moisturizer/lotion, bath oil, exfoliant/scrub, anti-aging treatment, and acne treatment. In the Timbuktu-Mali region, its herbal tea is highly used, among others, for gynecological treatments (regulating women cycle, accompanying labor and post partum, contraception) and to relieve bloating due to gas in the digestive tract. This plant is well-known worldwide and has significant medicinal value. This grass is type of medicine that can be used in many different illness conditions due to its minimum chemical concentration, from protecting against fever to acting as an anti fungal to treat acute skin inflammatory conditions. The seventeenth-century English herbalist

Nicholas Culpeper Nicholas Culpeper (18 October 1616 – 10 January 1654) was an English botanist, herbalist, physician and astrologer.Patrick Curry: "Culpeper, Nicholas (1616–1654)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (Oxford, UK: OUP, 2004) His boo ...

said about the plant: : ''Schoenanthus''. Schoenanth, Squinanth, or Chamel's hay; hot and binding. It digests and opens the passages of the veins: surely it is as great an expeller of wind as any is. John Hill, in his ''Family Herbal'' (1812), says that camel's hay was "at one time in great esteem as a medicine ... but it is now very little regarded".

References

External links

Kew GrassBase Species ProfileGBIF , Cymbopogon schoenanthus (L.) Spreng.
* schoenanthus Grasses of Africa Grasses of Asia Flora of North Africa Flora of the Arabian Peninsula Flora of Western Asia {{Panicoideae-stub