Couch Grass

Couch grass is a widespread perennial grass whose home range covers most of Europe and Asia, the Arctic and north-west Africa. Taken elsewhere in the cooler north as fodder or to hold soil against erosion, it has often escaped to become an invasive weed. Its stems rise to between 40 and 150 centimetres, with flat, hairy leaves and an upright flower spike that Kynes likens to an ear of wheat, and it blooms from late June into August. Creeping rhizomes carry it quickly through grassland and make it hard to clear from a garden, since every broken piece can grow into a new plant. Grazing animals feed on its foliage and buntings and finches on its seed, and in traditional Austrian medicine the rhizome was a remedy for fever. Kynes treats it under grasses in general, whose lore across Europe and the British Isles gave them power to reach the supernatural, to turn aside the evil eye and to undo magic already worked. Cunningham files it as witch grass: carried, or scattered beneath the bed, to draw new lovers; used in unhexing and uncrossing; its infusion sprinkled round a property to drive entities off; and worn to lift depression.