#Dwarf papyrus king tut full
It flowers in late summer, and prefers full sun to partly shady conditions. Papyrus can be found in tropical rain forests, tolerating annual temperatures of 20 to 30 ☌ (68 to 86 ☏) and a soil pH of 6.0 to 8.5. Fishermen in the Okavango Delta use small sections of the stem as floats for their nets.Įcology Papyrus growing wild on the banks of the Nile in Uganda The adventurer Thor Heyerdahl had a boat built for him of papyrus, Ra, in an attempt to demonstrate that ancient African or Mediterranean people could have reached America. The "rush" or "reed" basket in which the Biblical figure Moses is supposed to have been placed may have been made from papyrus.
Theophrastus states that King Antigonus made the rigging of his fleet of papyrus, an old practice illustrated by the ship's cable, wherewith the doors were fastened when Odysseus slew the suitors in his hall ( Odyssey xxi. From the stems were made reed boats (seen in bas-reliefs of the Fourth Dynasty showing men cutting papyrus to build a boat similar boats are still made in southern Sudan), sails, mats, cloth, cordage, and sandals.
Its woody root made bowls and other utensils and was burned for fuel. The pith of young shoots was eaten both cooked and raw. Its flowering heads were linked to make garlands for the gods in gratitude. Neither the explorer Peter Forsskål, an apostle of Carl Linnaeus, in the 18th century, nor the Napoleonic expedition saw it in the delta.Īside from papyrus, several other members of the genus Cyperus may also have been involved in the multiple uses Egyptians found for the plant. 10) states that it grew in Syria, and according to Pliny's Natural History, it was also a native plant of the Niger River and the Euphrates. Theophrastus's History of Plants (Book iv. Currently, only a small population remains in Egypt, in Wadi El Natrun. It is for example depicted on a restored stucco fragment from the palace of Amenhotep III near the present-day village of Malkata. In the Nile Delta, Cyperus papyrus was widely cultivated in ancient times. Its name has an uncertain origin, but was rendered in Hellenistic Greek as πάπυρος. ) for many purposes, including for making papyrus paper. papyrus, which came very close to extinction, but was rediscovered in 1968. Papyrus in history Įgyptians used the plant (which they called aaru, or the subspecies C. Technically, these are reduced leaves, so strictly it is not quite correct to call this plant fully "leafless". Īlthough no leaves are apparent above the soil line, the younger parts of the rhizome are covered by red-brown, papery, triangular scales, which also cover the base of the culms. Greenish-brown flower clusters eventually appear at the ends of the rays, giving way to brown, nut-like fruits. Each stem is topped by a dense cluster of thin, bright green, thread-like rays around 10 to 30 cm (4 to 10 in) in length, resembling a feather duster when the plant is young. It forms a grass-like clump of triangular green stems that rise up from thick, woody rhizomes. At Lake Naivasha, the culms, triangular in cross-section, were as much as 7 inches (18 cm) on a side in width. Each culm is a single internode the longest known of any plant. each of the up to one thousand rays of the umbel terminates in a spike of small flowers) for a total height of 31 feet (9.4 m). This tall, robust aquatic plant can grow 4 to 5 m (13 to 16 ft) high, but on the margins of high altitude lakes such as Lake Naivasha in Kenya and Lake Tana in Ethiopia, at altitudes around 6,000 feet (1,800 m) the papyrus culms can measure up to 29.5 feet (9.0 m) in length, with an additional 18 inches (46 cm) for the inflorescence (a spicate umbel i.e. It has been introduced outside its range to tropical regions worldwide (such as the Indian subcontinent, South America, and the Caribbean).ĭescription Papyrus plant ( Cyperus papyrus) at Kew Gardens, London In nature, it grows in full sun, in flooded swamps, and on lake margins throughout Africa, Madagascar, and the Mediterranean countries. It is now often cultivated as an ornamental plant. Parts of the plant can be eaten, and the highly buoyant stems can be made into boats.
Papyrus sedge (and its close relatives) has a very long history of use by humans, notably by the Ancient Egyptians (as it is the source of papyrus paper, one of the first types of paper ever made). It is a tender herbaceous perennial, native to Africa, and forms tall stands of reed-like swamp vegetation in shallow water. Cyperus papyrus, better known by the common names papyrus, papyrus sedge, paper reed, Indian matting plant, or Nile grass, is a species of aquatic flowering plant belonging to the sedge family Cyperaceae.
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