Schoenoplectus acutus

Schoenoplectus acutus has a thick, rounded green stem growing to {{convert|1|to|3|m|ft|0|abbr=on}} tall, with long, grasslike leaves, and radially symmetrical, clustered, pale brownish flowers.

The two varieties are:

• Schoenoplectus acutus var. acutus – northern and eastern North America
• Schoenoplectus acutus var. occidentalis – southwestern North America

It is native to freshwater marshes all over North America.{{cite book |last1=Munz |first1=Philip A. |title=A California Flora |publisher=University of California Press |year=1973 |isbn= |place=Berkeley, California |orig-year=1959}}{{cite book |last1=Munz |first1=Philip A. |title=A California Flora: Supplement |publisher=University of California Press |year=1976 |isbn= |place=Berkeley, California |page=183 |chapter=Scirpus lacutris, validus, glaucus}}

Tules at shorelines play an important ecological role, helping to buffer against wind and water forces, thereby allowing the establishment of other types of plants and reducing erosion. Tules are sometimes cleared from waterways using herbicides. When erosion occurs, tule rhizomes are replanted in strategic areas.

Flour can be made by peeling and cutting up the older roots, crushing and boiling them, removing any fiber, and drying.{{Cite book|last1=Elias|first1=Thomas S.| url= https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/244766414|title=Edible Wild Plants: A North American Field Guide to Over 200 Natural Foods|last2=Dykeman|first2=Peter A.|publisher=Sterling|year=2009|isbn=978-1-4027-6715-9| location=New York| pages=70| oclc= 244766414 |orig-year=1982}} The seeds can also be ground and mixed with the root flour.

Dyed and woven, tules are used to make baskets, bowls, mats, hats, clothing, duck decoys, and even boats by Native American groups. Before the Salish got horses for bison hunting, they lived in tents covered with sewn mats of tule.{{cite journal |last=Teit |first=James A. |year=1930 |title=The Salishan Tribes of the Western Plateaus |journal=45th Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology |publisher=Smithsonian Institution |page=332 |place=Washington, DC}} At least two tribes, the Wanapum and the Pomo people, constructed tule houses as recently as the 1950s and still do for special occasions. Bay Miwok, Coast Miwok, and Ohlone peoples used the tule in the manufacture of canoes or balsas, for transportation across the San Francisco Bay and using the marine and wetland resources.{{cite book |last1=Jones |first1=Terry L. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fFX066QfQv8C |title=California prehistory: colonization, culture, and complexity |last2=Klar |first2=Kathryn |publisher=Altamira Press |year=2007 |isbn=9780759108721 |place=Walnut Creek, California |via=Google Books}} Northern groups of Chumash used the tule in the manufacture of canoes rather than the sewn-plank tomol usually used by Chumash and used them to gather marine harvests.{{cite book |last1=Hogan |first1=C. Michael |url=http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=18502 |title=Morro Creek |year=2008 |isbn= |editor=Andy Burnham |via=megalithic.co.uk}}

The Paiutes named a neighboring tribe the Si-Te-Cah in their language, meaning tule eaters. The young sprouts and shoots can be eaten raw and the rhizomes and unripe flower heads can be boiled as vegetables.

File:Schoenoplectus acutus FWS-1.jpg]]

One of the few Pomo survivors of the Bloody Island Massacre (also called the Clear Lake Massacre) in Northern California, a 6-year-old girl named Ni'ka (also known as Lucy Moore) evaded the U.S. Cavalry by hiding behind the tule reeds in the bloodied water.{{Cite web |last=Dadigan |first=Marc |date=May 18, 2012 |title=Pomo Indians Remember 1850 Bloody Island Massacre With Events May 18-19 |url=https://indiancountrytoday.com/archive/pomo-indians-remember-1850-bloody-island-massacre-with-events-may-18-19-tlH7xF2Nq0SbN3K596ndfg |access-date=2021-01-02 |website=IndianCountryToday.com |language=en}} Her descendants have since formed the Lucy Moore Foundation to work for better relations between the Pomo and residents of California.

It is so common in wetlands in California that several places in the state were named for it, including Tulare (a tulare is a tule marsh). The city of Stockton was originally named Tuleberg by its founder, Charles Weber, and remains today as one of its many nicknames.{{Cite web |title=FUTURE SJ COUNTY BOUGHT FOR $60 IN GROCERIES PLUS A HORSE |url=https://www.mantecabulletin.com/news/local-news/future-sj-county-bought-for-60-in-groceries-plus-a-horse/ |access-date=2025-01-19 |website=www.mantecabulletin.com}} Tule Lake is near the Oregon border and includes Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge. It was the site of an internment camp for Japanese Americans during World War II, imprisoning 18,700 people at its peak. The town of Tulelake is northeast of the lake. California also has a Tule River. The Tule Desert is located in Arizona and Nevada. Nevada also has Tule Springs.

Tules once lined the shores of Tulare Lake in California, formerly the largest freshwater lake in the western United States, which disappeared due to agricultural development in the early 20th century. The expression "out in the tules" is still common, deriving from the dialect of old Californian families and meaning "where no one would want to live", with a touch of irony. The phrase is comparable to "out in the boondocks"{{cite journal |last=Eaton |first=Joe |date=January–March 2004 |title=Out in the Tules: The Freshwater Marsh of Coyote Hills |url=http://baynature.org/article/out-in-the-tules/ |journal=Bay Nature |via=baynature.org}} or "out in the sticks".

California's dense, ground-hugging tule fog is named for the plant, as are the tule elk, tule perch, and tule goose (a subspecies of the greater white-fronted goose). The giant garter snake (Thamnophis gigas) was historically closely associated with tule marshes in California's Central Valley.

{{Reflist}}

• {{Cite book

|last1 = Swall

|first1 = Corinne

|last2 = Nuyens

|first2 = Louis III

|title = Tule reed boat workbook : a voyage of adventure

|publisher = Mother Lode Musical Theatre, Watershed Preservation Network

|year = 2003

|location = Kentfield, California

|url = http://www.motherlodemusical.org/tule.html

|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110727093238/http://www.motherlodemusical.org/tule.html

|url-status = dead

|archive-date = 2011-07-27

}}

• [http://www.wpn.org/wpn/photogallery_tuleboat.htm Tule Boat Photo Gallery] at wpn.org
• [http://nativecc.com/Ohlonecanoe.html Tule reed canoe], Ohlone, launched on Lake Merced, San Francisco, at nativecc.com
• [https://www.nps.gov/labe/historyculture/modochomeland.htm Tule reed canoe], Modoc, at NPS.gov

{{Taxonbar|from=Q15628951}}

Category:Flora of California

Category:Reed boats

Category:Indigenous peoples of California topics

Category:History of the San Joaquin Valley

Category:Natural history of the Central Valley (California)

Category:Flora of Northern America

acutus

Category:Flora of the Coachella Valley

Category:Plants described in 1814

Category:Taxa named by Gotthilf Heinrich Ernst Muhlenberg

Category:Flora without expected TNC conservation status