Cattail or Typha Latifolia, one of the most useful wild plants for Bushcraft & Survival.
Updated: Sep 30, 2020
Also called Bulrush, Reedmace, Cumbungi and by most people just rushes. It has a wide variety of important uses, and has a huge worldwide geographical distribution.
It can be used for; friction firelighting providing it's one of the varieties with stiff enough stalks for the hand drill, tinder as the seed head produces masses of easily dried fluff, insulation is another excellent use of the seed head fluff when stuffed into clothing, edible roots or rhyzomes are easily cooked on a campfire with no vessels or utensils needed, edible pollen which can be used as a crude flour, excellent cordage from the leaves and even primitive arrow shafts from the tough varieties.
An amazing and abundant natural resource. Get outside, find some, get permission to harvest it and get experimenting!
Looks pretty good in this photo I took too! Definitely one of my favourite plants.
