Kendall County (IL) Forest Preserve District
Common Cattail
(Broadleaf Cattail)
Typha latifolia [C-value 1]
Cattail family (Typhaceae)
Blooms June -
mid-July
The native Common Cattail is common in our area. This aquatic prefers full sun and wet muddy soil. Habitats include marshes, swamps, seeps, borders of rivers and ponds, and ditches. It is a colony-forming perennial, 4-9' tall and unbranched. Its flowering stalk is light green to green, stiff, and round with 6 or more leaves up to 7½' long and 1" across that are linear, green to bluish grey, hairless, and flattened. The flowering stalk terminates in a spike of light brown densely-packed flowers. This spike is up to 1' long and ¾" across and narrowly cylindrical in shape.
Common Cattail at Rose Hill Subdivision pond August 3, 2012
Common Cattail (winter seedheads) at Lyon Forest Preserve fen April 9, 2014
Common Cattail (winter seedheads) at Lyon Forest Preserve fen November 20, 2014
Cattail was often used to make a nutritious and energy-rich food source which was processed into flour. The early tender "shoots" can be pulled and prepared (like asparagus) as a vegetable or in soups. Native Americans also collected the pollen from mature male flowers for use as a flour supplement or thickener. They also used the roots in poultices applied to burns, wounds' infection, sprains, boils, and swelling. Internally, it was used for abdominal cramps, kidney stones, whooping cough, cysts, gonorrhea, and diarrhea. Reminder: see Do Not Disturb Notice.
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