Bulrush

a genus of about eleven species of monocotyledonous flowering plants in the family Typhaceae. The genus has a largely Northern Hemisphere distribution, but is essentially cosmopolitan, being found in a variety of wetland habitats. These plants are known in British English as bulrush, bullrush, or reedmace, in American English as cattail, punks, or corndog grass, in Australia as cumbungi or bulrush, and in New Zealand as raupo. Typha should not be confused with other plants known as bulrush, such as some sedges

Description

Typha leaves are alternate and mostly basal to a simple, jointless stem that eventually bears the flowering spikes. The rhizomes spread horizontally beneath the surface of muddy ground to start new upright growth, and the spread of Typha is an important part of the process of open water bodies being converted to vegetated marshland and eventually dry land.
Typha plants are monoecious and bear unisexual, wind-pollinated flowers, developing in dense spikes. The numerous male flowers form a narrow spike at the top of the vertical stem. Each male (staminate) flower is reduced to a pair of stamens and hairs, and withers once the pollen is shed. The very large numbers of tiny female flowers form a dense, sausage-shaped spike on the stem below the male spike — in larger species this can be up to 30 centimetres (12 in) long and 1 to 4 centimetres (0.39 to 1.6 in) thick. Seeds are minute, 0.2 millimetres (0.0079 in) long, and attached to a fine hair. When ripe the heads disintegrate into dense cottony fluff, from which the seeds disperse by wind. Typha is often among the first wetland plants to colonize areas of newly exposed wet mud; it also spreads by rhizomes, forming dense stands often to the exclusion of other plants.

Edible uses:

Typha has a wide variety of parts that are edible to humans. The rhizomes, underground lateral stems, are a pleasant nutritious and energy-rich food source that when processed into flour contains 266 kcal per 100 g. They are generally harvested from late autumn to early spring. These are starchy, but also fibrous, so the starch must be scraped or sucked from the tough fibers. The bases of the leaves can be eaten raw or cooked, in late spring when they are young and tender. In early summer the sheath can be removed from the developing green flower spike which can than be boiled and eaten like corn on the cob. In mid-summer, once the male flowers are mature, the pollen can be collected and used as a flour supplement or thickener.Typha has also recently been suggested as a source of oil.However, the plant's airborne seeds have also been known to create skin irritation and can trigger asthma.

Other uses:

he disintegrating heads are used by some birds to line their nests. The downy material was also used by some Native American tribes as tinder for starting fires.
Some Native American tribes also used Typha down to line moccasins, and for bedding, diapers, baby powder, and papoose boards. One Native American word for Typha meant "fruit for papoose's bed". Today some people still use Typha down to stuff clothing items and pillows. When using Typha for pillow stuffing, dense batting material is used, as the fluff may cause a skin reaction similar to urticaria.
Typha can be dipped in wax or fat and then lit as a candle, the stem serving as a wick. It can also be lit without the use of wax or fat, and it will smolder slowly, somewhat like incense, and may repel insects.
The down has been used to fill life vests in the same manner as kapok.
Typha can be used as a source of starch to produce ethanol, instead of cereals. They have the advantage that they do not require much, if any, maintenance.
One informal experiment has indicated that Typha is able to remove the poisonous element arsenic from drinking water. Such a filtration system may be one way to provide cheap water filtration for people in developing nations.
The boiled rootstocks have been used as a diuretic for increasing urination, or used mashing, to make a jelly-like paste for sores, boils, wounds, burns, scabs, inflammations, and smallpox pustules.

Location: Scirpus: Throughout much of North America in dense stands in shallow I water around edges of reservoirs, marshes and swamplands.

Season: Provides edibles throughout the year.   

Edible: Young shoots in spring and fall; seeds in fall; rootstalk throughout the year.

Preparation: Harvest young shoots by following the rootstalk which bears the shoots. Shoots should be peeled and eaten raw or cooked. Rootstalk pith (core) is excellent baked. The rootstalk and stem can be dried and pounded t into flour and mixed with the seeds for baking. In fall the seeds can be ground into meal.

Notes of Interest: While the mature stems are too tough to be eaten, they can be used for weaving materials-mats, containers, cordage, etc.