Cat Tail - Corndog Grass



Posted: Monday, September 21, 2009

by Dennis Sons
tn nursery

Cat Tail belongs to the genus Typha, which is made up of around seven species of monocotyledonous flowering plants. Most of these plants are distributed in the Northern Hemisphere but can also be found in several different wetland habitats. In Britain these plants are also known as bulrush or reedmace, and in America as punks or corndog grass.

Growth

Cat tail plants grow in the form of dense strands. They are colonial plants, so naturally they emerge from rhizomes growing in the mud, usually connected by stems and stalks. A cat tail strand is similar to a branching shrub lying sideways under the mud, because it is only the blossoms and leaves that are visible above the mud.

Flowers and fruits

Cat Tail plants are monoecious and bear hermaphrodite flowers that develop in complex, dense spikes. The male flower develops atop the vertical stem, over the female flower. The male flowers eventually turn into just a pair of stamens with hairs and they wither away after the pollen is shed, leaving behind a short, bare stem above the female inflorescence. The female flowers form into a dense cluster to form a cylindrical spike, some which can be up to forty centimeters long.

These plants typically flower from May to July. The brown flower head pops open in early fall and lets the fluffy seeds out. These seeds are distributed through wind and water to new areas. They are very small and combined to a thin stalk or hair, which helps with the wind dispersal. These plants are generally some of the first to colonize locations with newly exposed wet muddy patches.

Uses

The root system of this plant is used to prevent erosion in some areas, and the plants themselves are important because they are home to many birds, insects and amphibians, which also rely on the plant for their food.

A wide variety of the parts of these plants are edible to humans. The rhizomes are a nutritious food source that is very rich in energy and is harvested from late autumn to early spring. They are fibrous and starchy and the starch needs to be scraped away from the tough fibers of the plant. These plants also have underground lateral stems that can be quite tasty. The bases of the leaves can be plucked in late spring when they are still young and tender, and eaten cooked or raw.

The boiled rootstocks of these plants are used to increase urination, or to make a jelly-like paste after mashing to treat boils, sores, wounds, scabs, burns, smallpox pustules and other inflammations.

The down is used to fill life vests much like kapok. The plant is used as a source of extracted ethanol, instead of cereals. These plants are easy to maintain and therefore are grown over cereals as a source of ethanol.

Habitat

These Cat Tail plants grow in ditches, swamps, marches and anywhere where there is stagnant water. If you find one you can be sure there is water nearby. Some of them can, however, be found out of habitat very rarely, such in a sandy, dry pine forest.

This Article has been viewed 396 times. (Not updated in real-time.)
No comments yet.
We want your comments! If you can read this, you don't have javascript enabled, so you can't use this comment system. Please enable javascript.