• The bulrush is a very common wetland plant with long, flat, ribbon-like leaves.
• They grow from a rhizome that is very spongy because it contains many air spaces, enabling it to survive under water.
• The flower heads consist of clusters of tiny male and female flowers. The male flowers at the tip of the flowering stem produce pollen. Below them are the brown female flowers that produce seeds that are dispersed by the wind.

• People dig up the rhizomes and pound them into a type of flour.
• Bulrush pollen contains a lot of protein and can also be eaten.

• Bulrushes have other uses:
  • the leaves can also be used to make mats and hand brooms
  • the rhizomes are used in traditional medicine to improve blood circulation and fertility
• The Common Reed is another wetland plant with many uses:
  • It also contains starch, which can be eaten
  • People make flutes and tobacco pipe stems out of the hollow reeds
• The stems contain a sweet sap that can be used as a sweetener and to treat chest complaints.

Click the buttons to find out more about indigenous food plants:

Indigenous fruits		Indigenous vegetables
	Berries (Tick berry, Frutang, Tortoise berry)		Bulrush (Typha capensis)
	Kukumakranka (Gethyllis afra)		Uintjies (Sedges, Klipuintjies, Wituinties)
	Sour fig (Carpobrotus edulis)		Green vegetables (Dune spinach, wild cabbage, Waterblommetjies)