Bullrushes

Kingdom: Plantae

Phylum: Angiosperms
Class: Monocots

Class: Commelinids

Order: Poales

Family: Typhaceae

Genus: Typha

Species: latifolia

This is a plant that is very common in South Africa and on Sondela Specifically. They are in just about every watering hole and every dam over here. They are pretty and are good for quite a few things like:
Birds use them for nesting
they are cover for fish
they are cover for fish and frog eggs
And mush more

The problem is that (as is with most things in life) too much can be a problem. And that is exactly what happened. They grow really fast and can cover a dam completely this causes several things but the worst of it is the depletion of oxygen in the water. It is not that they use so much oxygen during the night it is more that they take up lots of space and so in a way "suffocates" the water.

With less oxygen the fish can no longer breath and then die. Much of the bird life on Sondela eat fish, frogs and toads. So if these are no longer able to breed or live for that matter we would be removing a ling in the ecological chain. The dams also became so clogged with the bulrushes that the other animals like the buck could not get to the water to drink. That is why we needed to remove a large amount of these from every dam. As I mentioned before they also have lots of uses so removing them compleatly will also have negative repercussions.

This is where our role as conservationists came in. We have to know how much we must remove for the animals using the water to be able to survive and at the same time we need to know how much we must leave for the animals that utilize the plant to survive.

Origin:

It is indigenous to South Africa as well as many American and Canadian areas.

Uses:

Typha has a wide variety of parts that are edible to humans. The rhizomes, underground lateral stems, are a pleasant nutritious and energy-rich food source that when processed into flour contains 266 kcal per 100 g. Typha has also recently been suggested as a source of oil.

Typha can be dipped in wax or fat and then lit as a candle, the stem serving as a wick. It can also be lit without the use of wax or fat, and it will smolder slowly, somewhat like incense, and may repel insects. The leaves have been mixed with oil and used as a poultice on sores. It is used internally in the treatment of kidney stones, haemorrhage, painful menstruation, abnormal uterine bleeding, postpartum pains, abscesses and cancer of the lymphatic system. The young flower heads are eaten as a treatment for diarrhea.

Typha control and management:

The optimal control technique for a given site will depend on the hydro-logic state of the site, the size of the area to be managed, and if the manager is able to manipulate water levels. Removing dead leaves and submerging the shoots in early spring will strain the plant and eventually kill it. Starch reserves in the rhizomes are at their minimum in late spring when the pistillate spike of the cattail is lime green and the staminate spike is dark green. This is the best time to employ cutting, crushing, shearing, and/or deciding to eliminate cattail colonies because all these methods impede starch storage during the growing season. The methods of control work best if employed during a three-week time window beginning one week before and ending one week after the staminate spike has emerged. Grazing by cows, geese, muskrats, and other animals can be an effective method of cattail management. Spring and early summer treatments generally created favorable seedbeds for cattail that required a fall crushing to control seedlings. Crushing

involved pulling a 55 gallon water filled drum behind a tractor. Deeper water areas showed

highest control (up to 100 percent) while re-growth occurred in shallow areas.

Common names: broad leaf cattail, common cattail, soft-flag

We controlled the bulrushes by spraying it with Roundup(a herbecide) and giving it time to die. when they had died we had to physically remove the dead leaves from the dams. These will be used for composting.