U.S. Also tula. [ad. Aztec tullin, the final n being dropped by the Spaniards as in Guatemala, Jalapa, etc.] Either of two species of bulrush (Scirpus lacustris var. occidentalis, and S. Tatora) abundant in low lands along riversides in California; hence, a thicket of this, or a flat tract of land in which it grows.
1856. Olmsted, Journ. Texas, iii. 149. Windowless cabins of stakes, plastered with mud and roofed with river-grass or ‘tula.’
1882. Harper’s Mag., Nov., 876. The tules or rushes rise high above our heads, and … are infested with a dangerous breed of wild hogs.
1893. A. F. Battelle, in Chicago Advance, 2 Feb. Because of the tall rushes that grow there the land is called the tule. The tule is always low and level.
1894. O. Wister, in Harper’s Mag., Sept., 520. That dug-out with side-thatch and roofing of tule.
b. attrib., as tule farm, hut, land, marsh, root, swamp; tule wren, a kind of marsh wren (Telmatodytes or Cistothorus palustris, var. paludicola), which frequents the tules of California.
1850. B. Taylor, Eldorado, vii. (1862), 73. The hazy air, made more dense by the smoke of the burning tule marshes.
1883. Stevenson, Silverado Sq., 2. Across the cornlands and thick tule swamps of Sacramento Valley.
1890. Gunter, Miss Nobody, iv. The baked leaves of century plant, acorns, and tule roots.
1891. A. Welcker, Wild West, 64. A cabin on a swampy tule farm.
