Bulrush

“ Every billow hurries quicker, Every surge runs up the strand; While the brindled eddies flicker, Scourged as with a levin brand. VII Every bulrush, parched and welted, Lifts his long joints yellow-belted; Every lotus, faint and sick, Hangs her fragrant tongue to lick. Countless creatures, lone unthought of, Swarm from every hole and nook ”

“ The bulrush is not less unconscious of the marsh which modifies its growth, or the wallflower of the decay to which it clings, and by which alone its nature and growth would be most advantageously marked and perfected, than is the mountain child of that moral as well as physical development, which such peculiar circumstances are calculated to effect. ”

“ I do not much care for dried flowers—the bulrush and pampas-grass decoration has been so much overdone, that it has become wearisome—but I make an exception in favour of the flower of Eulalia japonica, and always give it a place. It does not come to its full beauty out of doors; it only finishes its growth late in October, and therefore does not have time to dry and expand. ”

“ Beautiful as the mimulus is when viewed in its natural surroundings, by running waters amidst the greys and light and dark greens of reed and willow, and of sedge and aquatic grasses, and water-cress, and darkest bulrush, its attractiveness was to me greatly increased by association. Now to say that a flower which is new to one can have any associations may sound very strange, but it is a fact in this case. ”

“ Among some of the few vegetable productions in use among the Australian blacks as food, is the root of a species of bulrush, which they name “Cormiork.” It grows abundantly on the banks of the Yas, Murrumbidgee, Tumat, and other rivers: the roots are eaten only when young: they are prepared by being baked, and the epidermis removed. Europeans who have partaken of it, say it has an agreeable farinaceous taste. The roots are collected in spring, when the young plants have just commenced sprouting. ”

“ The chief vegetable food, however, is furnished by the bulrush root, which is to the Australians who live near rivers the staff of life. As the task of procuring it is a very disagreeable one, it is handed over to the women, who have to wade among the reeds and half bury themselves in mud while procuring the root. ”

“ The cross lines are indicated by black dots. The black dotted greenish caterpillar has a brown head and a whitish green plate on first ring of the body. It feeds from May to July in the stems of reed-mace (Typha latifolia) , often called the bulrush or catstail; also in the true bulrush (Scirpus lacustris) . Fig. 5, Plate 148, shows the chrysalis in its characteristic position when in the stem, that is with the head upwards. The moth flies, in August and September, at dusk, over and among the reeds; the males especially freely responding to the attraction of light. ”

“ The growth and decay of these, with the water shield, with its jelly-protected foliage, the yellow dog-lily, and in lesser depths the bulrush, add to the growing bank as coral insects grow and die in tropic seas, until it is near enough to the surface for the pickerel weed to find roothold. ”

“ I sometimes think the Pussy-Willows grey
Are Angel Kittens who have lost their way,
And every Bulrush on the river bank
A Cat-Tail from some lovely Cat astray. ”

“ These Reeds, shaken by the wind, continually murmured, “King Midas has ass’s ears.” Both the Scirpus lacustris and Typha latifolia (the Reed Mace) are popularly known as the Bulrush (a corruption of Pole Rush or Pool Rush) . The Typha is depicted by Rubens, and the earlier Italian painters, as the Reed put into the hands of Jesus Christ upon His crucifixion. The same Reed is, on certain days, put into the hands of the Roman Catholic statues of our Saviour. ”

“ The nests are stoutly-woven baskets of reeds and grasses, light and dry and handsome. No mud or other matrix material is used in construction, and the interior is always carefully lined with fine dry grass. The illimitable bulrushes are the favorite cover, but rank herbage of any sort is used if only it be near or over water. The most humble situations suffice; and the nest is often placed within a foot of the water, or its equivalent of black ooze. ”

“ There was a flat-topped desk in one corner by the fireplace. The mantelpiece was hideous with pink and blue vases that held dried grass and clipped bulrushes. Looking round more carefully, he saw that Moses himself could not have had more bulrushes to screen him than Mrs Wayzgoose had put for the delight of her lodgers. There were bulrushes in the mirror over the sideboard, bulrushes in a gaily-decorated stand whose paint hid its drain-pipe pedigree, bulrushes in another bloated vase on a fretted ebony stand by the window. ”

“ I gather bulrushes in the summer-time, besides what I told you; some buys bulrushes for stuffing; they’re the fairy rushes the small ones, and the big ones is bulrushes. The small ones is used for ‘stuffing,’ that is, for showing off the birds as is stuffed, and make ’em seem as if they was alive in their cases, and among the rushes ”

“ Bully-tree, bool′i-trē, n. a name given to several West Indian sapotaceous trees yielding good timber.—Also Bull′et-tree, Bull′etrie, Boll′etrie.
Bulrush, bool′rush, n. a large strong rush, which grows on wet land or in water—often applied to the cat's-tail (Typha) .—adj. Bul′rushy.
Bulse, buls, n. a bag for diamonds, &c.: a package or certain quantity of such. [Port. bolsa—Low L. bursa, a purse. See Purse.]
Bulwark, bool′wark, n. a fortification or rampart: a breakwater or sea-wall: any means of defence or security.—v.t. to defend. [Cf. Ger. bollwerk.] ”

“ They are dainty and pleasing little birds in their movements, and with each step the short little tail is jerked downwards. On the water drying up on this large swamp the Crakes, Bald-Coots, and other aquatic birds repair to a neighbouring bulrush swamp, which I regard as permanent water, and when waiting for a shot at same I often hear their notes, and at times get a glimpse of them on the margins of vegetation beds. ”

“ In that country the people are fond of the roots of bulrushes, which they think as good as onions, and one of the young men said that they had better collect some of the roots and carry them back to the camp. ”

“ Most of them yield a substance closely resembling guttaÐpercha.
Bul¶rush· (?) , n. [OE. bulrysche, bolroysche; of uncertain origin, perh. fr. bole stem + rush.] (Bot.) A kind of large rush, growing in wet land or in water.
μ The name bulrush is applied in England especially to the catÐtail (Typha latifolia and T. angustifolia) and to the lake clubÐrush (Scirpus lacustris) ; in America, to the Juncus effusus, and also to species of Scirpus or clubÐrush.
ØBulse (?) , n. A purse or bag in which to carry or measure diamonds, etc. [India]
Macaulay. ”

“ In these luxuriant years the plants grew as thick as sedges and bulrushes in their beds, and were taller than usual, attaining a height of about ten feet. The wonder was to see a plant which throws out leaves as large as those of the rhubarb, with its stems so close together as to be almost touching. Standing among the thistles in the growing season one could in a sense hear them growing, as the huge leaves freed themselves with a jerk from a cramped position, producing a crackling sound. ”

“ My nurse had contrived to bring something of the country even into her London house. There were bulrushes on the walls that had grown by our old village stream, and the bunches of dried grass on the chimney-piece had been gathered in the fields behind my grandfather's cottage. There were no cheap modern ornaments to be seen; but we had put some quaint blue china on the shelf, and some more was visible through the glazed door of the corner cupboard. Up among the bulrushes hung a painted tambourine, decked with bows of bright satin ribbon ”

“ It is made by the women by placing side by side common bulrushes or flags about three feet long, tying the ends, and passing strings of twisted rushes through the whole length, sometimes twenty or thirty feet, about four inches apart, by means of a bone needle. ”

“ If the wind and the sun don’t do their part we won’t be eaten.’ So they turned themselves into bulrushes and all kinds of tough, stringy things that can stand wet feet, but nothing in the world can eat them. ”

“ Plaiting coarse straw or bulrushes is an employment that can be followed both by old people and young children; and you will find covers made of straw plaited into bands, and then sown together, of great service in protecting your half-hardy plants during frosty weather. Garden mats, baskets for flowers, and various other things, may be made in the same manner, and you will easily find out what will be most suitable to your protégées, and what they can do with least difficulty to themselves. ”

“ This papyrus was strong enough to resist the water, and well adapted by its lightness to swim with a child’s weight. The vessels of bulrushes mentioned in both sacred and profane history were made in the same manner on a larger scale. Bruce, the traveller, saw them in common use in Abyssinia; and even at this day they are to be seen on the Nile; though the introduction of plank and stronger materials has caused them to be laid aside in a great degree. ”

“ Add to this the moss, which has crept over the whole structure, making what remains of the platform a perfect cushion, and hanging in long flakes of emerald, which fairly dip in the water, and the whole object is before you. The stream has a slow, still motion, with eddies, here coiling up into wrinkles like an old man's face, and there dimpling around some stone like the smiling cheek of a young maiden, but in no case suffering its demureness to break into a broad laugh of ripples. In one spot tall bullrushes show their slender shapes and brown wigs ”

“ The 6-petalled blossoms are, more or less, drooping, but are usually conspicuous above the foliage and render the plants very attractive either in the rock-garden, flower-border, or grass-land. The plants like a moist sandy loam and leaf-soil, which, however, must be well drained so that the bulbs may not decay with the winter rains. Offsets are the easiest means of increasing the stock, and are best taken off after the flowers are over and the leaves have withered, i.e., about midsummer. ”

“ The reddish-brown prevails most on the upper parts of the body, wings, and tail; and the white, under the belly and the lower parts of the breast and tail. They associate in large flocks in autumn and winter; and, even in summer, are seen in companies of five or six. They feed on grass, insects, leaves of various shrubs in the plains, and the seeds of several species of plants which grow in richer soils. In winter, their food consists of the buds of the willow and cottonwood, and native berries.
The cock of the plains is found on the plains of the Columbia in great abundance. ”

“ If the miller were to take the toll of the grist he grinds by gathering the particles of flour from his coat and hat, as he moved rapidly about, or catching them in his pockets, he would be doing pretty nearly what the bee does. The little miller dusts herself with the pollen of the flower, and then, while on the wing, brushes it off with the fine brush on certain of her feet, and by some jugglery or other catches it in her pollen basket. One needs to look long and intently to see through the trick. ”

“ Several plants, especially with bulbous roots, which blossom abundantly in their native soils, have hitherto defied all the art of our gardeners to produce this desirable effect; yet future experience may possibly place it within our reach by some very simple means. In general, whatever checks the luxuriant production of leaf-buds, favours the formation of flowers and seeds. That variety, or perhaps species, of the Orange Lily, Lilium bulbiferum, which is most prolific in buds, seldom forms seeds, or even those organs of the flower necessary to their perfection. ”

“ Of beautiful weeds quite a long list might be made without including any of the so-called wild flowers. A favorite of mine is the little moth mullein that blooms along the highway, and about the fields, and maybe upon the edge of the lawn, from midsummer till frost comes. In winter its slender stalk rises above the snow, bearing its round seed-pods on its pin-like stems, and is pleasing even then. Its flowers are yellow or white, large, wheel-shaped, and are borne vertically with filaments loaded with little tufts of violet wool. ”

“ The other (Lilium bulbiferum) , found in the valleys of the Central and Northern Alps, hardly ever fruits, but is characterised by the bulbils it produces in the axils of its leaves; bulbils which disarticulate in autumn and are scattered by the wind. But there is no difference noticeable in the structure of the flowers in these two Orange Lilies, and it is difficult to explain their difference in [Pg 34] mode of propagation, save on the assumption that in the regions where Lilium bulbiferum grows those insects are wanting which should convey its pollen from flower to flower. ”

“ Another insect stings the same leaf and produces the common oak-apple—a smooth, round, green, shell-like body filled with a network of radiating filaments, with the egg and then the grub of the insect at the centre. Still another kind of insect stings the oak bud and deposits its eggs there, and the oak proceeds to grow a large white ball made up of a kind of succulent vegetable wool with red spots evenly distributed over its surface, as if it were some kind of spotted fruit or flower. ”

“ One of the most delightful phases of bulb-growing is that of the cultivation of hardy species in the grass. Nowhere do they look so well as against the grass, whose leafage seems to harmonise so well with the general character of the bulbous plants. In addition to this, many of these bulbous plants will thrive much better in grass than in a cultivated border, where there is often too much bare soil, and where other flowers of encroaching nature can injure them. ”