Aquatic and Wetland Vascular Plants of the Northern Great Plains
65. Typhaceae, the Cattail Family
1. Typha L. -- Cattail1. Typha angustifolia L. -- Narrowleaf cattail
Plants mostly 1.5-3 m tall. Leaves erect, green, mostly 3-10 mm wide, the auricles of the leaf sheath rounded and surpassing the base of the blade. Staminate and pistillate portions of the spike separated by an interval of usually 1-8 cm; staminate portion 7-20 cm long, 7-15 mm thick at anthesis, staminate bracteoles brown, anthers 2-3 mm long, pollen released in monads; pistillate portion of the spike dark brown, 8-18 cm long, to 2 cm thick at maturity, pistillate bracteoles present, these dark brown at the expanded tip, about equaling the gynophore hairs in length, broader than the linear stigmas, the gynophore hairs brown-pigmented toward the tips; stigmas pale brown, linear, curved with age, 0.8-1.2 mm long. Flowering Jun, fruiting late Jul--Sep. Marshes, shores, stream banks, ditches and margins of lakes and ponds, usually in shallow water; common in the e and c parts, apparently rapidly increasing in the w part, more characteristic of unstable water regimes than the following, although often occurring with it; also more tolerant of brackish or saline conditions than the following; (Nearly cosmopolitan; apparently rather recently adventive to much of our area; in N.Amer. from ME to Man. and s MT, s to SC, KY, MO, and TX; also c CA).
Barely entering our range in the s is the similar T. domingensis Pers. We have records from along the North Platte River in Garden and Morrill Counties, NE, and also from Lancaster Co., NE. The plant is generally more robust with yellowish to light brown pistillate spikes 2-3 cm thick in fruit. It is most readily distinguishable from T. angustifolia by the presence of brown mucilage glands on the upper surface of the leaf blades near their bases. These glands are confined to the inside of the leaf sheaths in T. angustifolia. Like T. angustifolia, T. domingensis hybridizes with T. latifolia to produce intermediate offspring.
Inflorescences and greatly enlarged achene of T. angustifolia. |
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