Typhaceae – Cat-tail Family

Tall grass-like perennial herbs, members of the Typhaceae are a clear indicator of slow moving water and wetland conditions. Found in many North American swamps, freshwater marshes, lakeshores, pools, and drainage ditches, cattails have a wide variety of ethnobotanical uses and provide habitat to many bird varieties.[i]

Long, flat, and alternately sheathing from the base, Typhaceae leaves appear almost iris where they emerge from laterally spreading rhizomes.[ii] The inflorescence stem is glabrous (smooth) and cylindrical, with a pithy center atop which sits a flower spike that looks not unlike a skewered hot dog. The thousands of tiny flowers comprising the inflorescence are segregated into one hotdog cluster of female flowers developing below another of males.[iii] Much like many other wind pollinated graminoids, sepals and petals are absent. Their microscopic seeds are wind distributed, carried away by light fluff as summers drag on and inflorescences dry out.

Starchy rhizomes are edible from fall to spring when they are full of stored plant sugars over winter.[iv] Soft seed fluff was used by North American peoples as pillow and mattress filler as well as a wound dressing, and even baby diapers.[v]

Typha latifolia – Broadleaf Cattail

Species Code: TYLA

Habit: Perennial native emergent forb, 1 to 3 meters tall, often developing into dense stands in slow moving water.

Leaves: Alternately arranged, flat, blue-gray-green leaves ranging from 1 to 2.5 cm wide and can reach 1 to 3 meters tall, reaching the flower cluster’s height.[vi]

Stems: Stout, cylindrical, and filled with spongy pith.

Flowers: Form thick, cylindrical, brown spike at top of long singular stalks (peduncle). Male flowers form on the upper portion of the spike; female flowers form lower. Initially the sexes are separated by a 0.5 to 4 cm wide gap until they fuse into one mature seed mass.[vii]

Fruits: Fruits are dry and made buoyant by the long hairs, slender style, and expanded stigma that remain on the matured fruits.[viii]

Ecology: Obligate Wetland Plant (Hydrophile), growing in standing, or slow-moving water of marshes, lagoons, sloughs, lakes, ponds, pools, roadside ditches.[ix]

Notes: When mature, the lower portion of the Typha latifolia stalk thickens, and the uppermost part of the stalk, which consists of male flowers in younger plants, withers.  This water loving plant can form monoculture stands under eutrophic conditions and is known to have excellent natural water filtering qualities.[x] therefore can be used in bioswales to collect farm runoff or urban areas with disturbed hydrology.[xi]

 

 

[i] Pojar, J., Mackinnon, A., Ed., Plants of the Pacific Northwest Coast. Lone Pine Publishing, Vancouver, Canada. 2004. 338

[ii] Gilkey, H. Handbook of Northwestern Plants, Revised Edition. Oregon State University Press; Corvallis, OR. 2001.  46

[iii] Guard, J. Wetland Plants of Oregon and Washington. Lone Pine Publishing, Edmonton, Alberta. 1995.

[iv] Elpel, T. J., Botany in a Day: The Patterns Method of Plant Identification. HOPS Press, 2004. 164

[v] Pojar, J., Mackinnon, A., Ed., Plants of the Pacific Northwest Coast. Lone Pine Publishing, Vancouver, Canada. 2004. 338

[vi] Guard, J. Wetland Plants of Oregon and Washington. Lone Pine Publishing, Edmonton, Alberta. 1995.

[vii] Gilkey, H. Handbook of Northwestern Plants, Revised Edition. Oregon State University Press; Corvallis, OR. 2001.

[viii] Pojar, J., Mackinnon, A., Ed., Plants of the Pacific Northwest Coast. Lone Pine Publishing, Vancouver, Canada. 2004. 338

[ix] USDA Plants Database: < https://plants.usda.gov/core/profile?symbol=

[x] [x] Elpel, T. J., Botany in a Day: The Patterns Method of Plant Identification. HOPS Press, 2004. 164

[xi] Koester, H. (2008). NATIVE PLANTS AND URBAN SUSTAINABILITY. Native Plants Journal, 9(3), 323-333.