The bright spring green of new growth that now trims forests and meadows also puts a sparkle on marshes. Softly bristling on the edges of freshwater marshes, our cattails have been shooting up fresh leaves and green spikes.

 Difficult to overlook, cattails can reach up to nine feet from rootstalk to flowertop. Cattails arise from rhizomes (horizontal stems) that creep through the wet sediment, sending up leaves and flower stalks. Cattail leaves are very long and flat, about an inch wide, while cattail stalks are cylindrical, tough on the outside and pithy on the inside, and usually bigger around than your thumb. (The non-native yellow iris, found in some of Oregon’s coastal freshwater wetlands, has leaves that are somewhat narrower, shorter, and more rounded at the tip.)

 The tiny flowers are tightly clustered at the top of the tall stalks, forming the familiar velvety sausage-shaped mass that starts out green in spring and turns brown by autumn. In autumn, the velvety brown mass near the top of the stalk will have a stretch of naked stalk above it. The stalk doesn’t grow past the brown velvet; in spring, that velvet is topped with fluffier stuff. Cattails have separate male and female flowers, both on the same stalk — the cylindrical group of female flowers below and the cylindrical group of male flowers above. The female flowers persist on the stalk until late autumn — making that familiar brown sausage shape — and the downy male flowers fall apart and are gone before autumn, leaving a bald stretch above the “cattail.”  

 Cattails are “obligate” wetland plants, meaning they always occur in wetlands. Cattails grow in still or slow-moving freshwater wetlands, usually with at least some standing water most of the year. Cattails can form dense, cattails-only communities, but can also mix with other wetland plants, such as burreed and bulrush.

 Cattails grow throughout the Northern Hemisphere; our native species is Typha latifolia.

 When I think “cattail,” I always hear the call of the redwing blackbird in my mind’s ear. The dense, robust leaves and stalks are valuable wildlife habitat for birds and other wildlife. Male redwing blackbirds are often seen perched on a cattail stalk, singing and displaying their bright shoulder patches. Other birds, from sparrows to bitterns, make their homes among the reeds as well.

 People are attracted to cattails, too. The pithy stalks and lathe-shaped leaves have long been used to weave mats and similar items. When the tough outer skin is peeled off, the tender spring shoots are a nicely-flavored vegetable, raw or cooked. The starchy rootstalks are both nutritious and productive, eaten as is, mashed, or dried and ground. Even the flowers are edible: the cylinders of green female flowers can be boiled and eaten as one would corn ears and the seeds — even the pollen — can be made into or added to flour. In fact, cattails are productive enough that some have proposed developing them as a commercial food source.  

 Because cattails are especially good at taking impurities out of water, they are also used in some areas to clean polluted water or sewage. And because cattails are especially good at taking impurities out of water, wild-food foragers should take extra care to make sure that their source is clean. (As always in trying a wild food, sample just a very small nibble — and wait a couple of hours — the first time you try it to make sure you don’t have an allergy or sensitivity to the plant.)

 Cattails die back in winter: Our verdant cattails will fade and the green leaves and stalks will wither and fall, returning their bounty to the wetland soil.  

For information on how to arrange an exploration of our fascinating natural history for your group or your visiting guests, contact Marty at 267-4027, or e-mail mgiles@wavecrestdiscoveries.com. Questions and comments about local natural history are welcome.