Posts Tagged ‘Bulrush’
a place in the marsh
For the last few weeks, as I drive by the ditches and wetlands on my way home from work, I am charmed by the way the bulrushes have burst and made their bountiful seed available to the winds.
The heads of the bulrush (Typha latifolia L., also known as common cat-tail or masette in French) are usually neat and tidy cylinders of dark brown, held high on a sturdy stem. At this time of the year, the seeds emerge in a copious fluff clinging to the brown seed-head like a beard, a lion’s mane or a furry hat.
When I was a child, we always called these plants ‘busby rushes’, presumably after the tall bearskin hats worn by the Queen’s Foot Guards in front of Buckingham Palace. Actually a busby is not the correct name for the bearskin, but is a hat worn by Hungarian hussars, or the Royal Horse Artillary, a ceremonial unit of the British Army.
Our two usual species of Typha are distinguishable by their leaves. Typha latifolia (broad-leaved cat-tail) has flat leaves. Typha angustifolia (narrow-leaved cat-tail) has narrower leaves, convex on the back.
~
bulrush in December
(Typha latifolia L.)
~
4:45 PM rush, the Marshlands
bus expels tired folk to familiar sidewalks
exhausts them in diesel cloud
a bulrush pushing its seed
to the wind in cold December
bearded and wise, fur hats and
ear flaps against the cold
breath expressed as icicles and rime
~
© Jane Tims 2011
nichepoetryandprose 