“The soil is the great connector of lives, the source destination of all. It is the healer and restorer and resurrector by which disease passes into health, age into youth, and death into life. Without proper care for it we can have no community because without proper care for it we can have no life.” Wendell Berry
Typhus Latifolia - Cattails
Cattails are found in wetland and marshes in up to 2 feet of water and reproduce most extensively by rhizomes but also by seeds. They are an important plant for food and cover for wildlife.
Frogs and salamanders lay their eggs on them and around them. Waterfowl such as Mallard ducks and Canada geese, and other birds such as Yellow headed and red winged blackbirds nest among them. Insects eat and live on them. Deer, raccoons and birds use them for cover. The fluff from cattails is used by many birds to line their nests
The starch in cattails roots available from late fall until spring is so abundant that it could feed many people in times of famine.
First nations people used cattail shoots, pollen and rhizomes for food. They used stems/leaves for basket weaving and the fluff for insulation.
Cattails can be used to produce ethanol which could be used as a clean source of fuel and energy.
Cattails filter out massive amounts of nitrogen and phosphorous along with other pollutants. They are efficient at removing pollutants and cleaning water. Because of this ability, cattails can perform a vital role in mitigating the contamination of streams, rivers and lakes by the industrial agricultural use of pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers.
Befriending cattails as water and wildlife friendly plants is smart for long term community wildlife population health and for human health. The species cleans the air and filters water. There is also the potential for future revenue in the biofuel industry for this plant.
Jackie Braga
Typhus Latifolia - Cattails
Cattails are found in wetland and marshes in up to 2 feet of water and reproduce most extensively by rhizomes but also by seeds. They are an important plant for food and cover for wildlife.
Frogs and salamanders lay their eggs on them and around them. Waterfowl such as Mallard ducks and Canada geese, and other birds such as Yellow headed and red winged blackbirds nest among them. Insects eat and live on them. Deer, raccoons and birds use them for cover. The fluff from cattails is used by many birds to line their nests
The starch in cattails roots available from late fall until spring is so abundant that it could feed many people in times of famine.
First nations people used cattail shoots, pollen and rhizomes for food. They used stems/leaves for basket weaving and the fluff for insulation.
Cattails can be used to produce ethanol which could be used as a clean source of fuel and energy.
Cattails filter out massive amounts of nitrogen and phosphorous along with other pollutants. They are efficient at removing pollutants and cleaning water. Because of this ability, cattails can perform a vital role in mitigating the contamination of streams, rivers and lakes by the industrial agricultural use of pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers.
Befriending cattails as water and wildlife friendly plants is smart for long term community wildlife population health and for human health. The species cleans the air and filters water. There is also the potential for future revenue in the biofuel industry for this plant.
Jackie Braga
