Bulrush

Green, aquatic, starchy-soft. Standing water, reed stems, pollen dust. Less sharp than cut grass, more humid, with a muddy foundation. The smell of a marsh on a warm, still day — not clean water but living water.

'Bulrush' is a confused common name that has been applied to at least three unrelated genera. The two most often invoked in perfumery are Typha latifolia (broadleaf cattail, Typhaceae — the tall brown 'corn-dog' spike that everyone recognises) and Schoenoplectus lacustris (common club-rush, Cyperaceae — the slender green stems used in basketry). In British botanical tradition, Schoenoplectus is the 'true' bulrush; in modern North American usage Typha is more commonly called bulrush.

Neither has a commercial perfumery extract. Bulrush as a fragrance note is a fantasy aquatic-green accord — water-side mineral-mud-pollen impressions built from calone, Helional, cis-3-hexenol, and a trace of starchy-vegetal notes (matsutake mushroom alcohol or ethyl methylphenylglycidate). The reference is the pond margin, not any specific extract.