Typha angustifolia -EXOTIC

 

Typha angustifolia (Narrow-leaved cattail) ( )

Typhaceae

• Slender perennial 0.5-1.5 m. tall; pith of stem white; stems about 2/3 as long as the leaves; leaves narrow, plano-concave or plano-convex or strongly convex on the back, 5-6 mm. wide, dark green; sheaths appearing cylindrical below but actually open to base, usually conspicuously auriculate above, rarely some sheaths tapering to the blade, the auricles scarious-margined; pistillate and staminate spikes usually separated by a distance twice as great as the diameter of the pistillate spike or greater, rarely less than 0.5 cm. or more than 12 cm. apart; pistillate spike dark brown to reddish brown or in age becoming greenish brown or mottled, usually 6-10 times as long as broad, 8-20 cm. long, 1.8-2.5 cm. thick; pistillate flowers arranged on compound pedicels which when stripped of appendages appear smooth; bracts spatulate, truncate, their blades dark brown, opaque, and firm, slender-stalked; fertile flowers pediceled, the stipe densely long-hairy, the style long, slender, bearing a dark brown, linear stigma; sterile flowers long-stipitate with a broad, flat-topped, inflated, terminal, aborted ovary; stamens on branched filaments, or sometimes sessile, often 2 or 3 to a cluster, the anthers opening by longitudinal slits, the connective clavate, often swollen and truncate above; pollen 1-celled, lemon yellow; bracts hairlike to linear, simple or forked, brown. Coastal and valley marshes at low elevations throughout California, widely distributed in Northern Hemisphere. "A Flora of the Marshes of California. Herbert L. Mason".