Typhaceae: Cattails. Tall monoecious perennial herbs from creeping rhizomes that grow deep in mud.  Cylindrical, jointless stems are submerged at the base. Leaf blades are C-shaped in cross section at the base, flat above, alternate, thick and spongy with large internal air cavities. Flowers are unisexual, wind pollinated, with over a thousand densely crowded on a terminal unbranched spike, the male (staminate) above, the sausage-like female (pistillate) below; there are no petals.   Staminate flowers mixed with papery scales (bracts) have 2-7 stamens on slender filaments; flowers wither once pollen is shed. Tiny fertile pistillate flowers on long, hairy stems have an ovary narrowed into a persistent style and narrow stigma; many modified pistils have an enlarged, terminal, sterile ovary and deciduous style (JM2). Fruits tightly compressed on spike, dry; when ripe, heads disintegrate into loose cottony fluff, the seeds fall free or becomes airborne.   The vegetation is an important food source for migratory ducks.  Rhizomes are edible with as much starch content as corn.  Evidence on grinding stones suggest these plants were eaten by humans in Europe as long as 30,000 years ago. The spread of Typha is an important part of the process of open water bodies being converted to vegetated marshland and eventually dry land.  Other uses.

Typha domingensis L, T. latifolia R, San Juan Creek, Ave. Aeropuerto to mouth, 6-30-13. © Ron Vanderhoff.	Typha domingensis L, T. latifolia R, San Juan Creek, Ave. Aeropuerto to mouth, 6-30-13. © Ron Vanderhoff.
	Typha latifolia L, T. domingensis R, El Toro Rd, E side, Hwy. 73 to Lag. Cyn. Rd., 7-18-13. © Ron Vanderhoff.