a bit of fluff
I didn't see a bulrush in real life till 5 years ago in Canada, when I visited some lakes in Manitoba with my sister and cousins from Winnipeg. They were like velvet lollipops, quite fascinating to touch, and when my cousins told me they would explode into seeds I cut off a couple and smuggled them home in my shoes (the ones in my luggage). They sat out on the terrace till autumn when they started bursting open - and a cloud of millions of seeds floated over the garden for days.
Apparently birds use the fluff for lining their nests, and Native American women stuffed things with it, instead of kapok.
And here is some more information lifted from wikipedia (which calls them cattails):
Cattails have a wide variety of parts that are edible to humans. The rhizomes are a pleasant, nutritious and energy-rich food source, 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. In addition to the rhizomes, cattails have little-known, underground, lateral stems that are quite tasty. In late spring, the bases of the leaves, while they are young and tender, can be eaten raw or cooked. As the flower spike is developing in early summer, it can be broken off 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. Cattails have also recently been suggested as a source of oil.
The boiled rootstocks have been used for increasing urination, or used mashing, to make a jelly-like paste for sores, boils, wounds, burns, scabs, inflammations, and smallpox pustules.
The downy material was also used by Native Americans as tinder for starting fires.
Native American tribes also used cattail down to line moccasins, provide bedding, diapers, baby powder, and papoose boards. An Indian name for cattail meant, “fruit for papoose’s bed”. Today some people still use cattail down to stuff clothing items and pillows.
a bit of fluff
I didn't see a bulrush in real life till 5 years ago in Canada, when I visited some lakes in Manitoba with my sister and cousins from Winnipeg. They were like velvet lollipops, quite fascinating to touch, and when my cousins told me they would explode into seeds I cut off a couple and smuggled them home in my shoes (the ones in my luggage). They sat out on the terrace till autumn when they started bursting open - and a cloud of millions of seeds floated over the garden for days.
Apparently birds use the fluff for lining their nests, and Native American women stuffed things with it, instead of kapok.
And here is some more information lifted from wikipedia (which calls them cattails):
Cattails have a wide variety of parts that are edible to humans. The rhizomes are a pleasant, nutritious and energy-rich food source, 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. In addition to the rhizomes, cattails have little-known, underground, lateral stems that are quite tasty. In late spring, the bases of the leaves, while they are young and tender, can be eaten raw or cooked. As the flower spike is developing in early summer, it can be broken off 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. Cattails have also recently been suggested as a source of oil.
The boiled rootstocks have been used for increasing urination, or used mashing, to make a jelly-like paste for sores, boils, wounds, burns, scabs, inflammations, and smallpox pustules.
The downy material was also used by Native Americans as tinder for starting fires.
Native American tribes also used cattail down to line moccasins, provide bedding, diapers, baby powder, and papoose boards. An Indian name for cattail meant, “fruit for papoose’s bed”. Today some people still use cattail down to stuff clothing items and pillows.