Typha

Typha
Typha latifolia
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
(unranked):	Angiosperms
(unranked):	Monocots
(unranked):	Commelinids
Order:	Poales
Family:	Typhaceae
Genus:	Typha L.
Species
See text

Typha is a genus of about eleven species of monocotyledonous flowering plants in the monogeneric family Typhaceae. The genus has a largely Northern Hemisphere distribution, but is essentially cosmopolitan, being found in a variety of wetland habitats. These plants are known in British English as bulrush, bullrush, or reedmace,^[1] in American English as cattail, punks, or corndog grass, and in New Zealand as raupo. Typha should not be confused with other plants known as bulrush, such as some sedges (mostly in Scirpus and related genera).

Description

Typha leaves are alternate and mostly basal to a simple, jointless stem that eventually bears the flowering spikes. The rhizomes spread horizontally beneath the surface of muddy ground to start new upright growth, and the spread of Typha is an important part of the process of open water bodies being converted to vegetated marshland and eventually dry land.

Typha plants are monoecious and bear unisexual, wind-pollinated flowers, developing in dense spikes. The numerous male flowers form a narrow spike at the top of the vertical stem. Each male (staminate) flower is reduced to a pair of stamens and hairs, and withers once the pollen is shed. The very large numbers of tiny female flowers form a dense, sausage-shaped spike on the stem below the male spike — in larger species this can be up to 30 centimetres (12 in) long and 1 to 4 centimetres (0.39 to 1.6 in) thick. Seeds are minute, 0.2 millimetres (0.0079 in) long, and attached to a fine hair. When ripe the heads disintegrate into dense cottony fluff, from which the seeds disperse by wind. Typha is often among the first wetland plants to colonize areas of newly exposed wet mud; it also spreads by rhizomes, forming dense stands often to the exclusion of other plants.

Species

• Typha angustifolia - Lesser Bulrush or Narrow Leaf Cattail
• Typha domingensis - Southern Cattail
• Typha ×glauca (angustifolia × latifolia) - Hybrid or White Cattail
• Typha latifolia - Common Cattail
• Typha laxmannii - Laxman's Bulrush
• Typha minima - Dwarf Bulrush
• Typha muelleri - Raupo
• Typha orientalis - Raupo
• Typha capensis - Cape bulrush
• Typha shuttleworthii - Shuttleworth's Bulrush

Typha plants at the edge of a small wetland in Indiana.

The most widespread species is Typha latifolia, extending across the entire temperate northern hemisphere. T. angustifolia is nearly as widespread, but does not extend so far north; some believe it is introduced and invasive in North America. T. domingensis is a more southerly American species, extending from the U.S. to South America, while T. laxmannii, T. minima, and T. shuttleworthii are largely restricted to Asia and parts of southern Europe. Typha latifolia has also been recently introduced into fresh water creeks and lakes in Australia where the water is shallow and contains levels of dirty, turbid water. It affects the flow of the water and also filters the water and catches floating or submerged items, possibly damming the water flow.

Typha plants grow along lake margins and in marshes, often in dense colonies, and are sometimes considered a weed in managed wetlands. The plant's root systems help prevent erosion, and the plants themselves are often home to many insects, birds and amphibians.

Uses

Edible uses

Typha has a wide variety of parts that are edible to humans. The rhizomes, underground lateral stems, are a pleasant nutritious and energy-rich food source, generally harvested from late autumn to early spring. These are starchy, but also fibrous, so the starch must be scraped or sucked from the tough fibers. The bases of the leaves can be eaten raw or cooked, in late spring when they are young and tender. As the flower spike is developing in early summer, it can be broken off and eaten like corn on the cob. In mid-summer, once the male flowers are mature ^[2], the pollen can be collected and used as a flour supplement or thickener. Typha has also recently been suggested as a source of oil. However, the plant's airborne seeds have also been known to create skin irritation and can trigger asthma.

Other uses

Typha seeds are very small, embedded in down parachutes, and very effectively wind-dispersed

Typha (蒲, gama^?) with/without seeds. Seeds used for Futon (布団 or 蒲団, futon^?) before cotton

The disintegrating heads are used by some birds to line their nests. The downy material was also used by some Native American tribes as tinder for starting fires.

Some Native American tribes also used Typha down to line moccasins, and for bedding, diapers, baby powder, and papoose boards. One Native American word for Typha meant "fruit for papoose's bed". Today some people still use Typha down to stuff clothing items and pillows.^[3] When using Typha for pillow stuffing, dense batting material is used, as the fluff may cause a skin reaction similar to urticaria.

Typha can be dipped in wax then lit as a candle, the stem serving as a wick.

The down has been used to fill life vests in the same manner as kapok.

Typha can be used as a source of ethanol, instead of cereals. They have the advantage that they do not require much, if any, maintenance.^[4]

One informal experiment has indicated that Typha is able to remove the poisonous element arsenic from drinking water. Such a filtration system may be one way to provide cheap water filtration for people in developing nations.^[5]

The boiled rootstocks have been used as a diuretic for increasing urination, or used mashing, to make a jelly-like paste for sores, boils, wounds, burns, scabs, inflammations, and smallpox pustules.

Typha orientalis is used to make compostable food packaging.^[6]

References

External links

• Can you actually eat cattails? from The Straight Dope