A stout-stemmed perennial, 4-8 ft. tall, often in found dense clumps. Broad linear leaf blades. The dense, brown, cylindrical flowering spike persist through autumn before becoming a downy mass of white. This tall, stiff plant bears a yellowish, club-like spike of tiny, male flowers extending directly above a brownish cylinder of female flowers.

By its creeping rootstocks, this typical marsh perennial forms dense stands in shallow water and provides a favorable habitat for red-winged blackbirds, as well as other marsh birds, and muskrats. The latter can cause extensive "eat outs," creating areas of open water in the marsh.

Plant Characteristics
Duration: Perennial
Habit: Grass/Grass-like
Leaf Retention: Evergreen
Leaf Complexity: Simple
Leaf Shape: Linear
Leaf Venation: Parallel
Breeding System: Flowers Unisexual , Monoecious
Size Notes: Growing in dense, grassy mats, cattails reach a usual height of seven feet. Stems are tall, erect and unbranched.
Leaf: Green
Size Class: 6-12 ft.

Growing Conditions
Water Use: High
Light Requirement: Sun , Part Shade
Soil Moisture: Wet
CaCO3 Tolerance: Medium
Aquatic: yes
Soil Description: Rich, wet soils. Mud, Saline tolerant
Conditions Comments: Many people have clear memories as a child, playing with the fluff of a Cat-tail. You can grow them in a pond or container that does not drain and the flowers look stunning in flower arrangements. Caution: Cat-tails have a tendency to take over wetlands. They are easiest to control in a small pond or container. Starchy roots have been a staple food for people in the past. Good for wetland gardens and habitats.

Benefit
Use Ornamental: Water garden, Bog or pond area. Cattails can be used as an accent plant or for a thick privacy screen. Since cattails are aggressive they make great container plants when planted one per 12- to 19- inch pot. Blooming from March through May, cattails offer a unique flower perfect for dried arrangements.
Use Wildlife: Cattails provide nesting sites for red-winged blackbirds, ducks, geese and fish. Nutria, muskrats and beavers enjoy the shoots and roots, while teal ducks, finches and least bitterns eat the seeds.

Use Food: Historically, many parts of the cattail have been eaten and used in a variety of ways. References to them appear in written records dating to the 1600’s, and it is known they were found in caves in Ohio dating 800-1400 A.D. The rootstock is mostly starch and edible; it ws ground into meal by First Nations, and the early colonists also used it for food. The young shoots can be eaten like asparagus, the immature flower spikes can be boiled and eaten like corn on the cob, and the sprouts at the tip of the rootstock can be used in salads or boiled and served as greens. Cattail pollen can also be used as a flour substitute in bread making, and was additionally used in Native American religious ceremonies.
Use Medicinal: Amerindians poulticed jelly-like pounded roots on wounds, sores, boils, carbuncles, inflammations, scalds, burns. Fuzz from mature female flower heads applied to scalds, burns and to prevent chafing in babies. Young flower heads eaten for diarrhea. Roots infused in mild for dysentery and diarrhea. (Foster & Duke) Down used as a dressing to pack burns. (Weiner) The Omaha tribe pulverized the root to form a paste used to heal burns, then covered the paste with the cattail flowers, while the Cheyenne took the powdered root for abdominal cramps.

Use Other: Used as padding for bedding, pillows & diapers. (Weiner) During World War II, the water-repellent and buoyant seeds were used by the U.S. Navy as substitute for kapok filler in life vests. Native Americans have used the feathery seeds for baby beds. When mixed with ash and lime, the seeds form cement that is reported to be harder than marble. For more than 10,000 years cattail leaves have provided Native Americans with a source for thatched roofs, woven floor mats and sandals. Leaves were twisted into rings and used under a collar to keep a horse’s neck from being injured. The stems produce a substance used as an adhesive. The Menomini and Meskwaki peoples used the root as a caulk to seal leaks in their boats.

Conspicuous Flowers: yes
Interesting Foliage: yes
Attracts: Birds
Deer Resistant: High