Calamus (Acorus calamus)
Folk Names: Beewort, Drug Sweet Flag, Flagroot, Gladdon, Grass Myrtle, Myrtle Flag, Myrtle Grass, Myrtle Sedge, Pepper Root, Pine Root, Sedge, Sweet Cane, Sweet Cinnamon, Sweet Flag, Sweet Grass, Sweet Myrtle, Sweet Root, Sweet Rush, Sweet Sedge
Description: Calamus is a perennial found in the northern hemisphere. It is a water plant, preferring pond and river edges, marshes, and swamps. The horizontal, creeping rhizome is up to 5 feet long and the sword shaped yellow-green iris-like leaves are two to six feet. From May to August, the calamus produces ridged flower stalk half way up its length with a two to four inch cylindrical tapering finger-like spadix sporting minute greenish-yellow or yellow-brown flowers. A leaf-like spathe covering the stalk continues past the spadix to same length as the leaves. Note the flowering part (spathe) protrudes from the leaf-like two-edged stem, while all other species are poisonous. The calamus has spicy smelling leaves and roots.
Effects: gentle
Planet: Moon, Mercury
Element: water
Associated Deities:
Traditions:
The calamus is rare and threatened in some states, so be aware of state laws concerning wild harvesting in your area.
Magic:
The seeds may be strung in a necklace for healing. The root is also powdered for healing incenses and sachets. It also strengthens and binds spells.
Keep pieces of the root in the corners of your kitchen to guard against poverty and hunger. It may also be grown in the garden for luck. Use the powder to bless any space.
Add calamus to the bath as an aphrodisiac.
Known Combinations:
None noted
Medical Indications: (Caution: Chewing the root tends to cause nausea in smokers. In appearance, it is also very similar to the poisonous Blue Flag [dull, blue-green and odorless] when not in bloom) Parts Used: root
Calamus is a carminative, diaphoretic, emmenagogue, febrifuge, sedative, and stomachic. It is known especially for its beneficial effects on stomach. Calamus stimulates appetite and relieves acute and chronic dyspepsia, gastritis. A decoction of the root in the bath is useful in cases of insomnia, tense nerves, scrofula, and rickets.
Nutrition:
The rhizomes can be cut, sliced and candied. Peel it, and it cut it into half-inch lengths. Boil these in four to five changes of water until tender (about one hour), then simmer for another twenty minutes in rich syrup and set out to dry.
The young shoots, up to twelve inches long, are also suitable for salad, but be sure you have the right plant. The half grown flower spike is also edible and the interior of stalk is sweet.
Mercantile Uses:
Calamus is an insecticide and moth repellent. Europeans and by seventeenth century American settlers scattered calamus over the floors not only to get rid of insects, but also to hide smells.
Calamus is a toothpaste additive.