Tules to the rescue

The U.S. Geological Survey is growing tules and cattails on about 15 acres on Twitchell Island, about 5.7 square miles of rich but fragile peat soil 30 miles south of Sacramento.

Not particularly inspiring at first glance, but then I googled “tule,” a word I hand’t come across before. I figured cattails would be some kind of Thypha. Tules turn out to be types of sedges, although some people seem to use the words interchangeably, or indeed together. Anyway, tules have an interesting ethnobotany in the American Southwest, along with other geophytes.

Nibbles: Food, Organic, Halophyte, Aromatic, Botanical garden, Coffee, Verroa mite, Pastoralists

Nibbles: Bees, Training, Fertilizers, Darfur, Tourism, Vinegar, Gardens

Nibbles: Funding, Grains, Wildflowers, AVRDC, Cloning, Salinity, Education, Sheep dogs, Swans, Writing, Fisheries, Big ag