CATTAIL (Typha Latifolia)

River-Lab 5 Guide Manual

CATTAIL (Typha latifolia)

The contributions of cattails to their basin systems significantly increase the productivity of those systems. Cattails help prevent erosion and siltation, provide habitat, and greatly increase the community of life in the water in which they grow.

Cattails are tall aquatic plants (3–9 feet) that often grow in dense stands in the shallow water of marshes along the shores of lakes, ponds, and streams. Tightly- rolled, strong, stiff cattail leaves poke up through the underwater wetland soil in the spring. The flat, narrow leaves are one- inch wide and grow up taller than the plant’s thin, stiff stem.

Sturdy cattail plants help maintain stable shorelines by holding the soil and providing resistance to slow runoff and floodwater. This resistance can prevent excess silt from being washed into the river and on down into the estuary.

Cattails provide habitat and nesting material for birds and other animals. The dense stands of cattails in a marsh provide favorable habitat for marsh birds, such as redwing blackbirds and bitterns. The density of such stands is due to the fact that cattails spread by rootstock as well as by seed. These rootstocks creep sideways underground, sending up new shoots close to existing plants. Redwings often nest among the cattails and use cattail fluff to line their nests. This use spreads the seeds. Cattails provide good camouflage for bitterns. The slender bittern stretches its beak straight up, causing the lines of its feathers to blend with the cattail plants.

Cattail marshes are also preferred habitat for muskrats. Even before the plants appear in the spring, muskrats feed on the cattail rootstocks. Their appetite for these can destroy the plants and result in areas of open water in the marsh.

By greatly enriching the water where they stand, cattails make possible the development of millions of small and microscopic organisms. When the cattails die down each year, they form a mat of decaying material or detritus in the shallow water. The nutrients from this material feed millions of planktonic and other microscopic and tiny organisms. These organisms support large numbers of the next level of consumers, such as small fish, insects, and many young, growing animals. Rivers carry some of the rich cattail detritus downstream to the estuary, which also benefits from the nutrients.

CATTAIL, cont’d.

The “cattail” of this monoecious plant appears at the top of the stem in May as a pencil-thin, velvety green spike. The top six inches will bear tiny golden male flowers. This part of the spike remains slender. The lower six inches, made up of thousands of even tinier brown female flowers, is more plump.

The male flowers burst open, releasing golden pollen. This pollen is carried by birds, insects such as bees, and wind to female flowers. After the pollen has been released, the male flowers wither away. By autumn, all that remains of the male spike is a bare grayish stem.

As the female flowers mature, they swell into a fat, velvety, sausage-shaped seed head. When fully ripe, the brown seeds loosen from the spike. Each seed is attached to a fluffy bit of cattail. The fluffy bits are carried by the wind, dispersing millions of seeds near and far. Many of these seeds will increase basin productivity by starting new cattail marshes or adding to ones already established.