Typha X glauca (Hybrid Cattail)

Plant Info
Also known as: White Cattail
Genus:Typha
Family:Typhaceae (Cat-tail)
Life cycle:perennial
Origin:native
Status:
  • Invasive - ERADICATE!
Habitat:sun; wet; marshes, wetlands, wet ditches, along lake, pond and stream edges
Bloom season:May - July
Plant height:3 to 9 feet
Wetland Indicator Status:GP: OBL MW: OBL NCNE: OBL
MN county distribution (click map to enlarge):Minnesota county distribution map
National distribution (click map to enlarge):National distribution map

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Detailed Information

Flower: Flower shape: indistinct Cluster type: spike

[photo of spikes just past flowering] Separate staminate (male) and pistillate (female) flowers on the same plant (monoecious). Thousands of yellowish male flowers are in a dense, slender spike up to 8 inches long at the tip of the stem. Below the male spike is a female spike about as long, with thousands of female flowers, the spike light green at flowering time turning dark brown to reddish-brown in fruit. There is usually a gap between the two spikes ½ to 6 inches long, occasionally shorter or absent altogether.

Leaves and stems: Leaf attachment: alternate Leaf attachment: basal Leaf type: simple

[photo of leaf sheaths] Leaves are basal and alternate, stiff, strap-like, flat, green, 3/8 to nearly 1 inch (10 to 23 mm) wide, the uppermost leaves often rising well above the flowering spikes. The sheath has a narrow band of translucent, papery edging, and the tip of the sheath where it meets the blade is rounded like the top of an ear (auricled), shouldered (squared), tapering, or anywhere in between. Stems are single, erect, stout, light green and unbranched. Vegetative colonies are formed from spreading rhizomes.

Fruit: Fruit type: seed with plume

[photo of compound pedicels] The male flowers wither away after pollen release and eventually drop off altogether. Pistillate spikes expand to about an inch or more (to ~3 cm) thick at maturity, each flower producing a single seed attached to a stalk with long white hairs, though seeds are rarely viable. The spikes can burst, allowing the seed to be carried off in the wind, or persist mostly intact through winter. When the fluff is removed what remains on the stem are the stalks of individual flowers, known as "compound pedicels", which are stubby and somewhat variable in length.

Notes:

Cattails are ubiquitous and easily recognizable by their thick, cylindrical spikes. They are commonly found in wet ditches, in the shallow waters of lake and pond edges, in marshes, wet meadows and almost anywhere else soil is saturated. Typha x glauca is a cross between the native T. latifolia (Broad-leaved Cattail) and non-native T. angustifolia (Narrow-leaved Cattail), though it is probably more common in Minnesota than either parent and has become a prolific invasive species. Even though seed production is usually poor, this hybrid spreads aggressively from rhizomes and can resprout from root fragments, so eradication is difficult, if not impossible. It's a real problem in wetland restorations.

Distinguishing T. x glauca from either of its parents is not very straight forward. Generally speaking, T. angustifolia has pistillate spikes that are less than 1 inch (to 2.2 cm) thick in fruit, there is a distinct gap between the staminate and pistillate spikes, widest leaves are not more than ½ inch (1.2 cm) broad and the sheaths tend to be auricled at the tip, especially the upper leaves. T. latifolia has thicker spikes up to 1½ inches (to 3.6 cm) wide in fruit, widest leaves consistently more than ½ inch wide, the sheaths are more tapered or shouldered at the tip, and the two spikes rarely have a gap between them. T. x glauca can be intermediate between its parents or take on characteristics of either one, with broad or narrow leaves and spikes, with or without a gap between spikes.

The shape of the compound pedicels on T. latifolia reminds me of the Empire State Building, complete with the long lightning rod at the tip. By comparison, those of both T. angustifolia and T. x glauca are shorter and stubbier, more like little mountains, having only 1 to 3 tiers and without the bristle at the tip, though I believe T. x glauca may have a few bristles.

There is one other notable distinction: T. latifolia tends to play well with its neighbors, usually forming small or loose colonies, where the other two are more prone to forming large, dense monocultures. And when push comes to shove, does it really matter which of the two invasive cattails you have?

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More photos

Photos by K. Chayka taken in Cass and Ramsey County.

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