Intro: Emergent aquatic perennial of fresh waters of ponds, lakes, ditches and marshes, including tidal freshwater marshes. Forms dense colonies.

Stems: Stems stout, stiff, unbranched.

Leaves: Leaves mostly basal, alternate and overlapping, with a sheathing base, linear, to 10 ft. long and no more than 1 in. wide, loosely twisted, more or less flat, smooth.

Inforescence:

Flowers: Flowers in a cylindridal terminal spike broken into 2 sections without a gap between, the lower all female (pistillate) flowers and to 7 in. long, and the upper all male (staminate) flowers and also to 7 in. long. The tiny flowers are densely packed, the female ones starting out pale green and becoming dark brown, the male ones yellowish-brown.

Fruits: Fruit numerous minute nutlets tufted with fluffy tawny hairs. Photo here shows plants with mature fruit.

Comments:

Height: 5-10 ft.

plant sale text: The cat-tail is an often overlooked yet fascinating plant. What we call the cat-tail is the brown portion that holds thousands of hairs attached to seeds. During the summer, the flower was green and contained the female parts, while a spike at the top, which can still be observed, was covered with male parts releasing pollen. As the female reproductive parts are pollinated they turn from green to dark brown and the seeds develop. The seeds mature by the fall and are released in the winter. Interestingly almost every part of the cat-tail was used by Native Americans as food except for the mature, brown cat-tails, which are used by the cat-tail moth for food and shelter.

bloom table text:

description: Emergent aquatic perennial of fresh waters of ponds, lakes, ditches and marshes, including tidal freshwater marshes. Forms dense colonies.

stems: Stems stout, stiff, unbranched.

leaves: Leaves mostly basal, alternate and overlapping, with a sheathing base, linear, to 10 ft. long and no more than 1 in. wide, loosely twisted, more or less flat, smooth.

inflorescence:

flowers: Flowers in a cylindridal terminal spike broken into 2 sections without a gap between, the lower all female (pistillate) flowers and to 7 in. long, and the upper all male (staminate) flowers and also to 7 in. long. The tiny flowers are densely packed, the female ones starting out pale green and becoming dark brown, the male ones yellowish-brown.

fruits: Fruit numerous minute nutlets tufted with fluffy tawny hairs. Photo here shows plants with mature fruit.

comments:

cultural notes:

germination code:

native range: North America & Mexico