Perennial herbaceous plant with a longish (up to 10 m long and 3 mm thick), cord-like, creeping rhizome. Stems triangular, rough above, with grooved pistils, linear-lanceolate leaves. Flowers in spikelets, later 6-16 in number, crowded in the upper part of the stem, forming a spike-shaped inflorescence. The fruit is a nutlet enclosed in a pouch.
Sedge rhizomes are used for medicinal purposes, collected after the plant wilts and is freed from stems and roots. The smell of fresh roots resembles the smell of turpentine, the finished raw material has no smell, the taste is weak, sweetish.
In folk medicine, sand sedge rhizomes are used as a diuretic and diaphoretic in the form of an aqueous infusion or decoction for gout, rheumatism, scrofula, colds, asthma attacks, skin rashes and boils.
In the old days, doctors prescribed this plant for syphilis. In the past, sandsedge rhizomes were harvested in large quantities to replace the valuable root of the South American sarsaparilla plant, used for syphilis, rheumatism, gout, skin diseases, as a diuretic and diaphoretic.
Application
Infusion: 1 tbsp. a spoonful of rhizomes per 0.5 liters of boiling water, insist 2 hours (or night), take 1/2 cup 4 times every day.