The Importance of Cattails

Cattails are a well-known native marsh plant, but their value for both humans and wildlife is less known.

According to the Peterson Guide to Edible Wild Plants, the pollen of cattails is high in protein and can be made into a protein-rich flour. The young shoots and stalks, immature flower spikes, sprouts and rootstocks can all be eaten.

Cattails also provide food for geese and muskrats. They provide shelter and nesting cover for redwing blackbirds.

Cattails can be grown in a backyard pool, in shallow water.

There are many valuable native plants like cattails which can be used as food. Yet, marshes and forests were destroyed by the early settlers for agriculture - to grow non-native plants which took back-breaking labour to cultivate! Had they known the food value of the native plants already there, they could have saved themselves all that trouble - and preserved the environment as well.

Marshes and other lands are stll being ruined by developers, along with the valuable, future food supply which they could provide. What will the increasing population eat?