Improvise 101 things from cattail

Greg Davenport

Greg Davenport

Joined
Nov 29, 1999
Messages
632
Note: Try to answer this before reading the responses of others.

(Since I believe improvising is a key component of wilderness survival...I like these kind of exercises.)

You find yourself in a longterm survival situation (reasons unknown). You have limited resources...yet you still have to meet your "five survival needs".

Following my survival step by step process you:

1. Stop and recognize the situation for what it is.

2. Recognize and prioritize your "five survival essentials" (listed below) in order of importance.

3. Improvise to meet your needs ("five essentials").

while going through the steps of improvising you inventory your manmade and natural materials. One of the things in this inventory is a marshy area full of cattail (a cattail can be broken down into leaves (6 to 9 feet), stalks (stems that are 6 to 9 or more feet), roots, and flower heads).

Question:

List at least five things you can improvise from the various parts of the cattail. With each improvised use...list which one of the "five survival essential" category it falls under.

Five survival essentials"

1. Personal Protection (clothing, shelter, fire)
2. Siganling (manmade and improvised)
3. Sustenance (water and food)
4. Travel (with and without a map and compass)
5. Health (psychological stress, environmental injuries, traumatic injuries)

------------------
Greg Davenport
http://www.ssurvival.com
Are You Ready For The Challenge?
Are You Ready To Learn The Art Of Wilderness Survival?

 
Oh no! A plant question! Wild edibles are one of my weak points. Hence, you won't see me describing how to eat any of its parts, but I do know some are edible!

Here's my improvisions:
1) Fluff-fire tinder.
2) Leaves and fibers from the stalk-cordage.
3) Leaves and stalks-shelter building material, mostly for filler and and outer rain resistent covering.
4) Fluff-insulation between layers of clothing.
5) Fluff-insulation for bedding, add between blankets, within bough bed, fill garbage bags with it.
6) Fluff-insulation in shelter-add between layers of covering.

That's all I can think of with this one...Plants are definitely a weak point with me! Hopefully, I'll learn more about this topic on this board.

Thanks!


------------------
Plainsman :)
primitiveguy@hotmail.com


 
Oooo!! Cat Tail!!!

The fluff works great for tinder, though you would be advised to use a stick under the tinder for ventilation, and not try to blow on it.

All parts are edible. Some better than others. The seeds on the fluff are the good part of the fluff. Roots can be eaten, best to cook first, since they are in water that is probably suspect, plus they taste better cooked. Young stalks can be eaten raw, but should be cooked if in contact with water, or washed in clean water well. The rest of it can also be eaten, but with less palatability, though the innards of the stalk can provide some water if chewed and sucked on.

Leaves are fantastic cordage/weaving material. If you can twist, braid, or weave it, you can make it with these leaves.

Stalks are great small game arrow shafts. Light, straight, and if you use the very tip, hardened in fire and sharpened, you need nothing else to make a functional point. There are better materials out there, but none that take this little work.

The denser, lower stalks, if found dried, coudl possibly be used for bow and drill fire starting. I've never tried with cat tails, but it should work somewhat.

The fluff can be used for all kinds of insulating/softening. SOme native tribes used it for babies diapers.

Ther very tip, early in the season, produces a light yellow pollen that can be used for a thickener in stews or in place of flour in bread (If you try this at home, keep half your flour normal stuff)

The stalks can be used as straws, or even a blowgun, though without poison, I would not expect a blowgun to be functional in the wilderness. Straws can especially help if digging for water in muddy areas, or in solar stills.

Cat Tail marshes are frequented by animals, as a source of food and shelter. If I was adept at catching birds, I could usually find red-wing blackbirds, and probably some waterfowl in nearby open water. It is also a good place to set snares for ground animals, and to catch/spear frogs likely to be present.


Stryver, fond of cat tails...
 
That sounds a bit less challenging than the 'old rusty stove' so I try a quick answer. (Not that we gave up on the 'stove'!!)

1) Personal protection:
Clothing: wave leaves into a sandal, sheats to cover upper body, hat, sunhat, 'grass' skirt and coat, female flowers for insulation to stuff cloths between layers, socks
Shelter: wave leaves into wind breakers, walls, for covering roof, wave it into mats
Fire: female flower stock is known tinder

2) Signaling: female flowers in sausagelike head burn like torch especially if covered with pitch, oil, grease, tallow or tar

3) Sustenance: 'one of the most versatile edible plants' (Edible Wild Plants, Peterson Field Guides); just to list few: stalks, immature flowers, pollen, sprouts, pollen, rootstocks; provides: salad, pickled, cooked, starch, fake potato (see book for details); high water content to quench thirst; since grows close to water in soil, it is a water indicator; use leaves to wrap and cook in it

4) Travel: I think I have seen the sausages floating on water so it might help to improvise small raft (collected and wrapped in tarp) to cross water body; make sandal to travel (if you don't have shoes). Use leaves to make fire bundles to carry fire.

5) Health: no clue...but try to make toy animals from leaves to keep yourself mentally sane and to have gifts handy when back to loved ones. In a pinch they can work as a tinder or sell them to collector nuts when published your book on your miraculous survival. A more practical use would be to use them to leave signal signs behind for SAR. Like 'turtle-turn left', 'giraffe-turn right', 'giraffe up-side-down- I am in really bad shape, hurry up..' and so on.

I leave you now, gotta work,

HM


 
I send it again since I haven't seen it even after 10 min and couple of reloadings. My apologies if it gets posted twice but I would mind typing it in again.


That sounds a bit less challenging than the 'old rusty stove' so I try a quick answer. (Not that we gave up on the 'stove'!!)

1) Personal protection:
Clothing: wave leaves into a sandal, sheats to cover upper body, hat, sunhat, 'grass' skirt and coat, female flowers for insulation to stuff cloths between layers, socks
Shelter: wave leaves into wind breakers, walls, for covering roof, wave it into mats
Fire: female flower stock is known tinder

2) Signaling: female flowers in sausagelike head burn like torch especially if covered with pitch, oil, grease, tallow or tar

3) Sustenance: 'one of the most versatile edible plants' (Edible Wild Plants, Peterson Field Guides); just to list few: stalks, immature flowers, pollen, sprouts, pollen, rootstocks; provides: salad, pickled, cooked, starch, fake potato (see book for details); high water content to quench thirst; since grows close to water in soil, it is a water indicator; use leaves to wrap and cook in it

4) Travel: I think I have seen the sausages floating on water so it might help to improvise small raft (collected and wrapped in tarp) to cross water body; make sandal to travel (if you don't have shoes). Use leaves to make fire bundles to carry fire.

5) Health: no clue...but try to make toy animals from leaves to keep yourself mentally sane and to have gifts handy when back to loved ones. In a pinch they can work as a tinder or sell them to collector nuts when published your book on your miraculous survival. A more practical use would be to use them to leave signal signs behind for SAR. Like 'turtle-turn left', 'giraffe-turn right', 'giraffe up-side-down- I am in really bad shape, hurry up..' and so on.

I leave you now, gotta work,

HM


 
101 things? Sheesh..... these are getting harder and harder... I might can think up a few but my brain is gonna implode trying to think up a hunnert.
smile.gif


1. Cordage
2. Insulation
3. Food - never have tried them but I understand almost the entire plant is edible.
4. YOu could weave the stalks into a passable shelter
5. Dried the would provide heat if burned.

------------------
Lee

LIfe is too important to be taken seriously. Oscar Wilde
 
The pollen is fairly hydrophobic. I've tried it as a flour substitute (a long time ago) and had quite a bit of trouble using it as a "flour."


------------------
Hoodoo

When you arrive at the fork in the road, take it.
Yogi Berra
 
Hoodoo, here's what I found:

I looked it up in Peterson's Field Guide (Edible Wild Plants of Eastern and Central North America, ISBN 0-395-31870-X). It mentions that the pollen mixed half-and-half with wheat flour makes an excellent 'protein-rich flour'. The rootstocks -however- are very rich in starch (from late fall to early spring) and can be extracted in cold water and used as 'pure white flour'. The early sprouts also have the starch.

HM

 
Hi Guys...

Ok here it goes....

1. Personal Protection (clothing, shelter, fire)
2. Siganling (manmade and improvised)
3. Sustenance (water and food)
4. Travel (with and without a map and compass)
5. Health (psychological stress, environmental injuries, traumatic injuries)

1-Fire Fuel
1-Fire Starting (Fluff and stocks,tinder & Kindling)
1-fluff Insulation bedding as well as clothing
1-stocks bedding insulation
1-stocks roofing material
Leaves Cordage
3-Roots - Food
1-stocks - Arrow shafts
1-Heads - candles
3-Young heads - food like corn


All I can think of now...

ttyle Eric...

------------------
Eric E. Noeldechen
On/Scene Tactical
http://www.mnsi.net/~nbtnoel
Custom made, High Quality
Concealex Sheaths and Tool Holsters
Canada's Only Custom Concealex Shop!

 
well, i could eat the cattail, i think i heard there is a part to eat every season, tubers in winter, shoots in spring, cattail in summer, or fall? i cant remember.

weave fishtraps out of the leaves/reeds, or use the reeds to funnel off a section of the marsh to chase fish into.

use the fluffed cattail for tinder, and the leaves(dried) as fuel.

use the cattail stems for shelter supports(would probabally need lots) and thatch with leaves for rain-proffing the shelter.

weave blankets/cloaks out of leaves(i dont think it would last too long, but would be better then nothing, and could possible serve as a windbreak)

possible strip the leaves down to fibres and use to make cordage? i havent tried this before, the fibres may be too brittle.

stuff fluff/pollen in clothing to insulate for colder weather

use leaves as a sleeping cusion

use the reed part for fish spears(would probabally be better if tipped with a stone or bone tip, and wouldnt last too long)

possible bunch lots of dried reeds and leaves together to form a raft/boat(im not sure how well this would work either)

hmmm. lots of usefull stuff on those plants.


------------------
AKTI member #A000911

 
RYK...

About the leaves as cordage...
No need to do anything.. Twist them up as is,, as long as they are moist...

Get Ron's video Vol # 6 Weapons...It's in there..

ttyl

Eric...

------------------
Eric E. Noeldechen
On/Scene Tactical
http://www.mnsi.net/~nbtnoel
Custom made, High Quality
Concealex Sheaths and Tool Holsters
Canada's Only Custom Concealex Shop!

 
Here's my effort:

1. Personal Protection

Clothing - leaves can be stripped and woven into baskets, garments and footwear. Time consuming, but possible.

Shelter - Stalks can be bundled and tied with leaves into sections for a shelter.

Fire - down from cattail makes tinder. The stalk can be a spindle for friction fire starting.

2. Signaling

Fire. Also, you could lay out the word HELP using the stalks.

3. Food and water

Water is the marshy area. Boil with the fire. Cattail roots contain edible, starchy tubers. They taste a little like swampy potatoes. Also, the tops of the cattail are edible when immature, and the cattail pollen is edible.

4. Travel without a compass.

Use the cattail stalk to make a shadow-stick compass. Mark the intervals with other stalks, rocks, etc.

5. Health

I don't know of any medicinal value for cattail for treating injury, but knowing I can eat it, wear it and build fire with it greatly helps the situation psychologically.


How did I do?

Mike
 
BTTT.

Just wanted to give new board members a chance to challenge their improvising skills.

Best,

------------------
Greg Davenport
http://www.ssurvival.com
Are You Ready For The Challenge?
Are You Ready To Learn The Art Of Wilderness Survival?

 
The flower stalk of the cattail is usable for a hand drill fire spindle. In fact, the first fire using this method I ever saw used a cattail and a white cedar fire board.

The leaves can be twined into very nice mats for shelter covers or bedding. Many wigwams were covered with these mats. I had a friend who would bundle leaves and stems into 4" bunches. He would fix eight or nine of these bundles together, parallel to each other, and make a mattress! He kept several stuffed into hollow logs in our running grounds.
 
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