HERB - rush lites

[dwilson]

  I will reply quickly as the list may be shut down soon.  I am working from
a rather popular account of rush light manufacture written in the 18th
centaury (I cant find the reference right now) and it says to use Juncus
effusus .   I think of this as a 3 ft\1 meter high hollow plant.
  I am using Scirpus lacustris. 5 to 8 ft high and a pithy core.  I am not
sure about calling it bulrush as I think of bulrushes as something we call
cattails http://members.nbci.com/wendysweb/cattail.jpg  here in Canada.
What I am using is circumboreal as it is the plant used for mats in Japan,
seats in some chairs and the same plant Moses cradle was made of when he was
cast adrift on the Nile.
 Sheepstealer


 -----Original Message-----
In its defense, the names are modern and accurate (British):  the authors
knew their plants, their history and their herbalism--a rare combination.
The only problem with the names is they are organized by common names (with
no index) and the common names are British, some of them unfamiliar to
Americans.
  I have Period herbals that might have been used to answer Sheepstealer's
questions, but the scientific names of Period plants were all added after
the Middle Ages by people trying to guess what plant was indicated.  And
most of those appended plant lists are old enough that the nomenclature has
changed some.  So those aren't easy sources.  Rushes are among the groups
where identification to species is often lousy--poorly studied.  I wanted to
ask whether you have the common bulrush (_Scirpus lacustris_) in the US,
Sheepstealer.  None of my US floras list it.   soft rush, _Juncus effusus_
is all over the eastern US, apparently native (circumboreal I guess),
according to those same sources.

  Agnes

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