Recently, I read a book entitled “Gone for Another Day“, published by the Ned Smith Center. This book is from the original journals of Naturalist and Artist Ned Smith. On June 25, 1978, Ned wrote in his journal that he had found a number of cattail flowers ready to burst through their papery sheathes, with the male spikes swollen and shedding pollen. When Ned found the male sections that still had their papery sheathes, he cut the sheathed spikes off the plant and took them home to cook and eat. After the spikes were boiled for three minutes, they were removed from the water, generously buttered and ready for Ned to eat. Ned wrote that they were quite good but the male flowers had a hard core that resembled a knitting needle. The part about the papery sheathes was unclear to me; however, several weeks later I was walking through a stand of cattails, while trying to find and take a picture of a red-winged blackbird’s nest, I noticed that although some of the male sections still had their papery sheathes, most had been discharged and laden with pollen. | The two species of cattails common in North America are Typha latifolia and Typha angustifolia. Typhia is a Greek word meaning marsh; latifolia, meaning wide leaf and anugustifolia, meaning skinny leaf. T. latifolia prefers shallow water and is found in the north, while T. anugustifolia prefers deeper water and is found more abundantly in the south. If lost in an area where cattails are found, a person will have four of the five things needed to survive: water, food, shelter and a source of fuel for heat (previous year’s stalks). Only companionship will be missing. Cattails, which are also known as a bulrushes and cat-o-nine-tails, are among the first wetland plants to colonize a newly exposed wet area due to their abundance of seeds dispersed by the wind. The seeds buried in the mud are able to survive for long periods of time. Seeds germinate best with sunlight and fluctuating temperatures, which is typical of many wetland plants growing on mud flats. Cattails also spread by their rhizomes, which create interconnected stands of cattails that often exclude other plants from growing. |
Cattails are eaten by wetland mammals, especially the muskrat; while birds line their nests with the seed hairs. All parts of the plant are edible for humans; however, a warning here is that polluted water moving through a cattail stand can accumulate in the plant, making them unfit to eat. No green plants produce more edible starch (not even potatoes, rice or yams) per acre than cattails. During WWII, plans were underway to feed American soldiers with this starch; however, the war ended. One acre of cattails can produce 6,475 pounds of flour per year. During WWII, the U.S. Navy used the down of the cattails (along with the milkweed fluff) as a substitute for kapok in life preservers and aviation jackets. Tests showed that even after 100 hours of submersion the buoyancy was still effective.
A large cattail head can contain as many as two million seeds, with each seed suspended from silky hairs having the capability of traveling a long way on the wind. Our first American quilts were stuffed with cattail fluff, and during WWI, the fluff was used as a dressing on wounds. The male pollen is very flammable and in some countries is used for tinder.
The large cattail heads can be dipped in either wax or fat to be used as candles, with the hard stem serving as a wick. Without the wax or fat, the head will only slowly smolder, somewhat compared to incense and could
be used to repel insects.
Our Native Americans used all parts of the cattail plant: moccasins were stuffed with the fluff to ward off the cold; mothers padded their cradle boards with the fluff, both for insulation and as an absorbing diaper; cattail roots were dug to be eaten either raw, dried or roasted; roots were also ground into a meal to be used in baking cakes; the plants’ long leaves were dried and woven into baskets and seats; the first green
leaves appearing in the spring were picked and cooked as a green and lastly, the male flower's pollen was collected and used for thickening soups.
The Native Americans harvested the cattails by laying a blanket on an out-rigging of their canoe and then as they paddled through a cattail stand, they beat the plants with their paddles. The pollen fell on to the blanket where it was collected.
Do you agree that cattails are one of the amazing plants we share this planet with?