On the bushcraft side of life, cordage can be made in the field from a variety of fibrous materials. Plants such as nettles, dogbane, milkweed, thistle, grass, and more provide fiber that can be twisted by hand into strands of cordage. Using fibers can often take time to prepare but there is perhaps a quicker resource for binding material – sapling roots.

A sapling is defined as a young tree, especially one with a slender trunk. They send out roots that are close to the surface of the ground that can grow to several feet in length. In addition, they are very flexible and quite strong.

The root in the photo was collected from a sapling at the edge of the woods behind my home. The ground is covered by leaves and very moist from recent rains. I used a gardening hand cultivator to dig up the soil to reveal and retrieve the root but a digging stick or even just your hands can accomplish the same task. This root was just an inch or so below the surface and about three feet long but other roots could easily be longer. Care should be taken to uncover these as much as possible rather than just pulling it free to preserve their length which will make them much more serviceable for binding.

The tripod in the photo was lashed together using this single root and was very serviceable. Additional roots could be used to further strengthen it if needed or to hang a pot over a campfire for cooking. In any case, it took very little effort to collect the root and assemble the tripod in a short amount of time.

Why use grass roots for tinder? Each environment that you encounter may or may not have the tinder resources that you need. Survivalists would suggest that as you travel about, collect potential tinder as you go so that you will be prepared when you need to create a fire. Because roots initially contain moisture, they will need to be dried out for several days, so they would be a more long-term prepped tinder.

I decided to take two fire starting approaches: sparks by ferro rod and solar by wallet-sized Fresnel lens magnifier.

When I first applied sparks with the ferro rod it didn’t work. I realized that I needed to fluff out the roots into a wispy ball, much like I would treat cotton or steel wool tinders in order to catch a spark effectively. The next spark caught immediately.

When I used the pocket magnifier I initially got lots of smoke but not a sustainable ember. Although I had compressed the roots for this approach it needed more compression so I twisted the small bundle as if to make cordage into a small ball. That did the trick. I suggest having as much mass as possible with more tinder standing by to supplement the ember once it’s established.

Generally speaking there is a multitude of tinders more readily available but it’s always good to be aware of alternative tinders when circumstances limit your regular choices.

The prominent edible part of the canna lilie is the root which is a rhizome that is similar to cattail roots that contain starch. And, like cattail roots, they can be mashed into a pulp to remove the fiber to collect the starch for drying and later ground into a flour. They can be eaten raw but you can treat them like potatoes and bake or boil them too.

The leaves are broad and rather large and can be used like banana leaves to wrap foods for steaming or pit cooking. The young shoots of canna lilies are eaten as a vegetable , however, the blossoms are said to be not edible. The fiber of the stalks have been used as a jute substitute for cordage.

Although these plants may not be indigenous to your area, it’s good to know that they are a readily available edible landscape plant that can be a reserve food source in an emergency situation.

Larger potatoes take time to cook so an alternative method is used if you don’t have an oven. By encasing a potato or “spud” with mud you can protect it from being burned and more evenly distribute the heat. If you like eating the potato peel, you can first cover the potato with leaves or even wet newspaper, otherwise, the skin is a barrier to the starch inside. When covering your spud, clay is the preferred material as it adheres together well whereas regular soil may not hold together and cracks more easily.

The last time I had baked spuds my friend made some with straight clay and with others he included grass in the clay mix. The ones with grass held together better. We placed them on the campfire coals and also built a fire on top of them. After an hour they were ready to eat.

We had one left over that night and the next morning we opened it to find that it was still warm and very edible. If you try this on your next camping trip you might consider “planned-overs” for breakfast the next morning.