Southern Cattail
(Typha domingensis)
Southern cattails are perennial wetland plants with long, slender green stalks topped with brown, fluffy, sausage-shaped flowering heads.
Other names for this plant include:
- Common names: Tall cattail
- Scientific names: Typha angustata
Classification in Wisconsin: Prohibited
- Ecological Threat
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- Invade freshwater marshes, wet meadows, fens, roadsides, ditches, shallow ponds, streams and lakeshores.
- Play an essential role as a source of food and shelter for some marsh-dwelling animals, but large mono-specific stands of invasive cattails exclude some less common species.
- Identification
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Leaves: Pale yellow-green leaves are alternate, long, linear, flat and sheathing. There are 6-9 leaves per stem, up to 5/8 inch wide, flat on one side and convex on the other.
Flowers: Numerous tiny flowers densely packed into a cylindrical spike at the end of a stem that can grow up to 8 feet. It is divided into an upper section of yellow male flowers and a lower cinnamon-brown, sausage-shaped area of female flowers. There is a 2.5-5 cm gap between male and female flowers.
Fruits & seeds: Seeds are tiny (about 1 mm), dispersed by the wind with the aid of numerous hairs.
Roots: Plants reproduce vegetatively using starchy underground rhizomes to form large colonies.
Stems: Stems are pithy, simple, erect and 5-13 feet tall.
Similar species: There are other species of cattail in Wisconsin that may be confused with Southern cattail. Broad-leaved cattail (Typha latifolia) is native to WI, while narrow-leaved (T. angustifolia) and hybrids (T. glauca) are also considered invasive. Southern cattail has beige or cinnamon-colored fruiting bodies, compared to the darker red or brown coloration of the broad and narrow-leaved cattail fruiting spikes. Southern cattail is usually taller and has flattened and more numerous leaves than narrow-leaved cattail.
- Distribution
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See the reported locations of southern cattail in Wisconsin.
Do you know of additional populations? Please send us a report.
- Control
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Mechanical: Cut all stems, green and dead in mid to late summer or early fall. Where possible, maintain a minimum water level of 3” above the cut stems for the entire growing season.
Chemical: Foliar spray with aquatic-approved imazapyr. Herbicide applications near water may require a permit.
- Resources
- Sources for content:
- Bugwood wiki: Typha species [exit DNR]
- eFloras.com: Typha domingensis [exit DNR]
