Narrow-leaved Cattail

Kendall County (IL) Forest Preserve District

Narrow-Leaved Cattail
Typha angustifolia [C-value 1]
Cattail family (Typhaceae)
Blooms June - mid-July

The native Narrow-Leaved Cattail is common in our area. It prefer full sun and wet muddy soil. Habitats include marshes, edges of ponds and streams, and ditches. This colony-forming perennial is 3-7' tall and unbranched with a stiff round green stalk. Its stiff green leaves are 1½–6' long and only ½" across, narrower than Common Cattail leaves. The stalk terminates in a spike of brown densely-packed flowers and abundant hairs that is up to 8" long and ½" across and narrowly cylindrical.

Narrow-Leaved Cattail at Pickerill/Pigott Forest Preserve pond August 27, 2013

Narrow-Leaved Cattail (fall seedheads) at Pickerill/Pigott Forest Preserve pond October 29, 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 our Do Not Disturb Notice.

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