Half a century ago, when I was but a kid in South Lincolnshire, England, there were Bulrushes everywhere, at least where there was water around. Perhaps my memory exaggerates the true picture, perhaps I stopped visiting ponds (true).
So today, visiting the lakes at Groenendaal, ostensibly looking for dragonflies, I was happy to see some fine specimens in small stands along the water’s edge.
The bulrush has many uses but I won’t dwell on them except to quote from John Wright’s 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐹𝑜𝑟𝑎𝑔𝑒𝑟'𝑠 𝐶𝑎𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑎𝑟: ‘the washed and peeled rhizomes can be eaten raw or cooked or can be dried and made into a flour by drying prepared stems then crushing them and removing the fibres, though this is a long process and best left until the fall of civilisation’.