The ongoing sedentary lifestyle, unhealthy eating timings and habits, excessive stress due to the pandemic and balancing work and home, have rendered an unproductive digestive system and an overall depreciation of the gut health. As a result of this, one not only faces problems related to gas, bloating, indigestion, abdominal pain, and diarrhoea but also undergoes issues regarding skin, hair, sleep, and even mental health. Ayurveda, a 5000-year-old traditional remedial science notes that the digestive system is not just a process where food gets broken down and provide our body with energy and the required nutrients but a fundamental step or the key that leads to a long and diseased free life.
The substances we eat or include in our daily diet plays a key role in managing auto-immune disorders, behavioral problems, degenerative disorders, inflammatory woes and allergic conditions and hence digestion has a strong command over the hormonal, nervous and immune systems. And due to this, more and more people swing towards healthier dietary options by including fruits, veggies, spices, and herbs to regulate the digestive fire and thereby manage all other health woes. One such incredible ayurvedic herb that ayurvedic practitioners have been recommending since the ancient times is Nagarmotha.

What Is Nagarmotha?

Nagarmotha is a classical ayurvedic herb of perennial origin that goes by the botanical name Cyperus rotundus and belongs to the sedge family or the Cyperaceae family of plants and hence is a close relative of Cyperus esculentus, the tiger nut or chufa. Deemed as one of the most invasive and pestiferous plant all over the world, nagarmotha infests over fifty variety of crops worldwide, and owing to this, it has even earned itself the nickname of “the world’s worst weed”. It chiefly prefers moist or well irrigated, light sandy and medium loamy soils with an acidic, neutral or alkaline nature and thrives best in gardens, lawns, fields and waste lands of Africa, southern and central parts of Europe, and southern Asia.
Nagarmotha is a colonial plant exhibiting fibrous roots and usually grows to a height of 7-40 cm. They reproduce by giving out tubers, basal bulbs, rhizomes and fibrous roots. These rhizomes in the initial period are white and fleshy in nature with scaly leaves that later become wiry, fibrous and dark brown in colour. These rhizomes don’t have a particular direction of growing. The ones growing upward and reaching the soil gradually become large structures of 2-25 mm in diameter and are known as ‘tuberous bulb’, ‘basal bulb’ or ‘corn’ which eventually gives rise to roots, shoots and other rhizomes. However, the ones that grow horizontally or downward form either a chain of tubers or single tubers.
The leaves that arise at the base of the plant are usually dark-green, shiny and narrow, whereas the leaf sheaths are tubular and membranous. The stems are tall, smooth, and triangular and support the inflorescence. Flowers are bisexual each with three stamens and a pistil bearing three stigmas and are borne in compound umbel, spikes consisting of 3-8 spikelets. Fruits are produced throughout the year specially during the monsoons and bear seeds in the form of trigonous nuts or three-angled achene (nutlets).