ABSTRACT
This chapter provides information on the uses, folk medicine, chemistry, germplasm, distribution, ecology, cultivation, harvesting, yields, energy, and biotic factors of Purple nutsedge. According to J. L. Hartwell, purple nutsedge is used in folk remedies for phymata, abdominal tumors, glandular tumors, hard tumors, indurations of the stomach, liver, spleen, and uterus, and cervical cancer. Considered the number one weed in many parts of the world, this sedge has been suggested as a landscape plant in China, and as a soil binder in India. Tuberous rhizome, eaten in many areas as vegetable or chewed on, may be regarded as a famine food. Nutsedge can take over entire streams or canals as water becomes low. Plants are harvested from native or naturalized stands. "Cyperus rotundus may produce up to 40,000 kilograms of subterranean plant material per hectare." The 40 tons of underground plant material, convertible to energy, is perhaps most efficiently harvested by grubbing pigs.
