Cattail Revelations

 

Cattails have found their wind-blown way to the quarry margins.

Cattail Corner

They have steadily enlarged their domain in Cattail Corner with a root mass extending over submerged ledges and engulfing an old beaver lodge.

Cattails are well supplied in their stems, leaves and roots with a spongy tissue that creates air channels to facilitate the exchange of gases with their lower parts growing directly in water, or in hypoxic soils. 

An American Eel foraging in the cattail roots

The cattail colony provides both a sanctuary and a larder.

Painted Turtle

Green Heron with minnow

Cattail Corner bereft of flowers in early August

Oddly, hardly any of its bottlebrush flower spikes dramatized Cattail Corner this summer, though the foliage has been lush and verdant.

An adjacent colony in bloom

At the same time, just down the shoreline, another stand of cattails began taking on a tired look as their flower spikes bloomed prolifically.

Narrow-leaved cattail, Typha angustifolia

A close look reveals that this second colony is formed of a different species. Its spikes are separated into two parts, the sausage-shaped, seed-bearing female flowers topped by a less conspicuous array of male flowers, usually with a gap between the floral sexes.

Common cattail, Typha latifolia
Male flowers above the female flowers

In the Common (Wide-leaved) cattail the floral sexes are contiguous.

A winter rendering

Cattail Corner inspires imaginative images year round. It gratifies the eye as well as the wildlife it harbors. Hopefully after this sparse flowering season it will return to its typical productivity.