CATTAIL

Latin Name: Typha latifolia

Alternate Names: Pu Huang (Chinese), Cat-o-nine-tails, Cossack Asparagus, Supermarket Of The Swamp

Family: TYPHACEAE

Parts Used: Root, young shoots, seed heads, leaves, pollen.

Properties: Astringent, Diuretic, Emmenagogue, Hemostatic, Nutritive, Vulnerary.

Internal Uses: Angina, Cystitis, Diarrhea, Dysmenorrhea, Urethritis

Internal Applications: Tea, Capsules.

Only the pollen is a diuretic. Use pollen for angina and menstrual cramps, roots for diarrhea.

Topical Uses: Burns, Insect Bites, Poison Ivy, Poison Oak, Rash, Wounds

Topical Applications: Dust the pollen on bleeding wounds to staunch the flow of blood. Use the poultice from powdered roots to treat poison oak, ivy, rashes, insect bites and burns. Soak plant head in tallow to use as torches. Use down as insulation for jackets, bedding. Leaves are used for making chairs and hats. The flower heads are soaked in kerosene and burned as torches.

Culinary uses: One of the best wild food plants. One can make a flour from peeled, dried and sifted roots. White sprouts can be eaten raw or cooked. Young shoots are peeled and cooked as a vegetable and called Cossack Asparagus. Pollen spikes are actually composed of a male flower (yellow upper part) and female flower (lower limey green portion). These can be cooked like corn on the cob.

Energetics: Sweet, Cool.

Chemical Constituents: Yellow pollen contains sitosterol, iso-rhamnetic, fatty oil.

Contraindications: Use pollen cautiously during pregnancy due to its emmenagogue qualities. Before eating cattail roots, it is best to soak in a Clorox solution (one half teaspoon Clorox to one gallon of water for thirty minutes) or cook them to kill parasites.

Comments: The genus name, Typha, is Greek for 'of the bog' referring to the marshy areas that Cattails grow in. Cattails help to purify the water in which they grow. One acre of Cattail can yield over three tons of flour, making it a promising agricultural plant of the future.

The common name Cattail includes the species Typha angustifolia, Typha domingensis and Typha glauca, which are used interchangeably with Typha latifolia.

-- Phil in KS (cshomestead@planetkc.com), April 18, 2002