The reedmace, more often called bulrush, is one of the most spectacular plants in the Highlands being robust with a thick, upright stem and attaining a height of over seven feet. The very long narrow, straight sided leaves rise above the top of the flowers and in some areas form a dense cover. The brown, sausage or mace shaped head are the female flowers and it is dark brown and forms the most impressive part of the plant. Even at close quarters this smooth head up to six inches long does not look like flowers and yet it consists of thousands of them, very tiny and tightly packed together. The rather feeble male flower head rises from the top of the female flowers as can be seen in the photograph. The plant grows in a wide variety of places such as shallow water or exposed mud on the sides of lochs and lochans and occasionally by burns and rivers. Bulrushes have a rather mysterious distribution in the Highlands as they are only record in the east around Inverness plus a very few around Fort William. It is absent from the rest of the Highlands and Islands but, curiously, it has been introduced into one or two places in the Western Isles and the Northern Isles.
Considering its size it does not seem to have many medicinal or culinary uses in the past. In the Highlands the plant had a reputation for curing epilepsy although it seems to be more of a charm than a medicine. It was felt to be most potent if it was gathered at Midsummer night before being wrapped in a shroud. Keeping the dead stem and root was supposed to ensure freedom from every ailment for the rest of one’s life. The fluffy seeds were used to stuff mattresses and baskets and chairs were woven from the leaves and because these were waterproof they were also used for making reed boats. There are no records for the leaves being used as thatch despite the fact that other leaves that partly resemble them were use for this purpose such as those of yellow iris and the great pendulous sedge. An interesting development in recent years has been the use of reedbeds that have been specially created for water treatment from domestic sewage to chemical outflows. The beds consist of reed, reedmace and bulrush.
Bulrushes are the plant badge of at least three Clans namely the Innes, Logan and Mackay but only the Innes Clan had it registered at the Lyon Court. It is not certain which part of the plant was used. The name bulrush is a misnomer as the correct name is the greater reed mace but the word bulrush has been in widespread use for so long it has become its adopted name The true bulrush is another plant all together, called club rush or simply rush. The name bulrush is even used in the latest Atlas Of the British Flora published in 2002. Early drawings of Moses as an infant in the basket are labelled as “Moses in the Bulrushes” whereas in fact the plant is clearly the club rush. The Gaelic name for the greater reed mace is Cuigeal nam Ban-sidh meaning “Fairy Women’s Distaff”. The easiest place to see bulrushes around Inverness is within the city boundaries as they grow in the Muirtown Lagoons on the west side of the city. The photograph was taken at a loch near Strathpeffer where the bulrush and the club rush grow side by side and form a dense fringe of vegetation along the margins along with water mint and greater willow herb.