NEVADA BULRUSH

Scirpus nevadensis
family: Sedge (Cyperaceae)
mo'omėstaso, "pretty shaped" (Grinnell 1923 II: 170)

Nevada bulrush is perennial plant growing from creeping rhizomes. Flower stems are without leaves, ridged, 10 to 70 cm tall, 0,5 to 2 mm wide. 5 to 10 leaves grows from the bottom. The leaves are 0,5 to 2 mm wide. Inflorescence contains 1 to 15 cm long bract and a cluster of brown, leafy spikelets under it. Nevada bulrush blossoms in July and August. It grows on sunny, saline, often alkaline places, seasonally with abundance of water. It ranges from Manitoba, North Dakota, western Nebraska, and central Colorado westward; in altitude 400 to 2400 m.
Formerly, Cheyenne women weaved bulrush mats which they placed on beds of willow sticks (Grinnell 1923 I: 241). Bulrush rhizomes are white, 15 to 20 cm long, and they can be pulled out easily. Cheyennes rinded them and ate raw. It is sait that two or three such roots are enough for feeding up. Cheyenne priests used this species of marsh grass to stuff buffalo skull of the Sun Dance altar too (Hart 1981: 8).
 
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