Cattail
(Scientific Name: Typha latifolia)

Description: This familiar plant of the swamps can be identified by its distinctive flat, spongy, long leaves 3-6 feet long and the straight, un-branched stem which terminates in a sausage-shaped seed head.

Habitat: Common in marshes and wet places throughout the world except for Arctic regions.

Uses: When young plants appear in the spring, pull them loose from the rootstock, peel away outer leaves and use the tender cores for salads, or cook like asparagus. The following refers to the picture at the bottom of this page. When the plant is young (left cattail), the pollen spike (top section) can be boiled for about 10 minutes and eaten like corn-on-the-cob. When the pollen spike is yellow (center cattail) it is ripe, bend the tops over carefully and shake this pollen into a container. Mostly protein, it can be mixed with other flours for baking. When the pollen spike is like the one on the right, it is too mature to eat. Tender, young, white sprouts which appear in early summer on the ends of the rootstock or at the base of the plants can be eaten either raw or cooked. The rootstock becomes quite fibrous with age, but a nutritious flour can be made by pounding the peeled, dried rootstock and then sifting to separate the starchy flour from the fibrous parts. Because of its wide distribution, abundance, and availability throughout all seasons, the cattail rates at the top of the list of wild plant foods.