From Marsh to Manuscript: Exploring Cattail Applications in Your Story

What parts of the cattail plant are edible? How are they prepared before basket weaving? What seasons are good for harvesting? How can cattails make primitive fire, arrows, and mats? Do you know what herbal remedies they can make? Learn about all of this and more in today’s episode. 

Transcript

What parts of the cattail plant are edible? How are they prepared before basket weaving? What seasons are good for harvesting? How can cattails make primitive fire, arrows, and mats? Do you know what herbal remedies they can make? 

Learn about all of this and more in today’s episode. 

Welcome to Writing Rural with Alley, the fiction writer’s weekly inspiration station for rural life and lifestyles, from historical to post-apocalyptic, helping you bring your rural stories to life! I’m Alley, and this is episode #87, Many Uses For Cattails In Your Story. Stick around to the end to find out all the ways things could possibly go wrong. 

Before we start this week’s episode, I want to answer all the questions about what happened and where I vanished to. To make it short, an elderly family member we care for had a medical emergency that sent them to the ICU, and unfortunately, they didn’t make it. With this being so close to the death earlier this year, my kids just needed me to spend some time focused on them. 

Now that you’re caught up, let’s get into this.

Cattails have been part of Native American culture for as long as anyone knows, and likely since caveman times. While I think of this as Native American, cattails are actually found on every continent except Antartica. They grow in wetlands, near bodies of water, and in moist areas such as ditches. 

Some people call them invasive species, even in places where cattails are native. This is because once they take hold, they can overgrow an area and overtake other plant vegetation. Not only that, but they can take over a pond as they can grow in water up to two feet high. Many people with pond are known to try to kill them off, by uprooting them, and moving them to other places, or not there at all. Uprooting these plants has to be done by hand, so your character will be wet or wearing some kind of rain boots or fishing bibs. Basically, think of farmer’s bibs and then make them rubber and attached to the boots with no seams to let water in. Around here we call them waders. 

There are many things cattails are good for, these include, but are definitely not limited to; food, fire starter, gardening mulch, baskets, floor mats, bedding, insulation, diapers, feminine products, stuffing, twine, hats, cotton balls, fire torch, arrow shafts, hand drills for fire starting, pond erosion control, glue, kindling, feed for livestock, a privacy fence, toothache treatment, and much more. 

There are several parts to the cattail. The roots, rhizome, male pollen, female seeds, flower head, leaf blades, and the stalk. Sometimes these are called other things during different seasons, at least locally. For example, when it is a young plant and first growing, the stalk is called a young shoot, and the white part is cut to eat, while the leaves around it are dried and used for things like basket weaving. When there is pollen on the male pollen, it is normally called the pollen, or the thing-a-mawacker with the pollen, and when there is not pollen, it is called the top of the stalk. Well frankly, I only know of the online stuff that calls it the male pollen, but you get the idea. 

Each part is used for different things. The rhizomes can be dried out and ground into a flour. The pollen can be collected in brown paper bags, or even zip-lock bags, and used as a flour substitute. This pollen is high in vitamins and minerals. Another good thing is that if your character has a disease, like celiac disease, this is safe for them to use as a flour substitute as it contains no gluten. 

Roots are a great carbohydrate and can be harvested any time of the year. New shoots are harvested in early spring, and can be eaten raw, or cooked. They are high in many vitamins. I know the seeds can be eaten, but I have got to admit, I have no idea how. 

That said, the seeds are attached to the cattail fluff. If you have never seen cattail fluff, you most definitely should google it and get a video. When slight pressure is applied to the brown head, it looks like it is vomiting a never ending amount of fluff. Each cattail head can produce 200,000 seeds with fluff attached to each, so they can be carried on the wind to grow in a new place. Normally, less than ten of these heads can fill a small pillow. This fluff is often used as an alternative to goose down, and is used as insulation for clothing, and even homes. 

The young flowers, which are basically the brown part that looks like a hotdog on a stick, but while it is still green, is great to eat. They taste like corn on the cob, and everyone I know, and everything I see online, says to cook it the same. I have done this, and it tastes great, especially with a little butter. 

Cattails are most common for baskets and as a food source. This is true in history, today, and will be in the Apocalypse. One side note for modern, and in any zombie apocalypse, cattails soak up toxins from water, and ground sources. Your characters will need to be careful of this. Well, unless you want to make a nice radioactive mutant or poison your character. 

On that same note, it is very likely your character will need to get into the water to harvest, destroy, or even use cattails as a natural cover for an ambush or theft. This comes with a few dangers, such as if there is anything in the water that can hurt a person. In my area, that would be a water moccasin snake, also called a cotton mouth snake, and snapping turtles. In other areas that could be other animals, leaches, predators hiding in the reeds, of both the two and four-legged varieties. In modern and post-apocalyptic man-made dangers could lerk, such as wire, or broken glass. 

Now let’s go over a few things you should know about some of the more common things. For baskets there is a bit of a process to making them. You see, after the leaves are harvested, during the growing season (so anytime before they turn brown) and cut close to the base of the plant. They are separated from the stalks. These will be anywhere from three to ten feet long, and a half an inch wide to one inch wide. The leaves are then left out to dry. This usually takes about two to three weeks. 

My father told me if they had smaller numbers for a single project (so about 10), they would sometimes slowly move them through a fire, to help dry them faster. They will pop as they are moved through the flames. This will be done a few times, and then left out to dry for about a week. 

After they are fully dry, they will need to be sized. This can be done by people who have done this for a long time with just their eyes and a knife. Yes, these people have usually done this with their parents since they were tiny. For others, they find a tool that has the size they want them to be, and two cutting blades facing the same way. They then pull the reeds (what the leaves are called) through the cutting device. 

Then they will be soaked until pliable. I know, it always sounds weird to me, but they will be tied in bundles to the amount your character needs. This can be a few bundles if there is a village of people, but they don’t want more than what can be used in a day, so the reeds will not risk growing mold and mildew. My Native American grandmother said they bundled them and placed them weighted down in the river, or pond for what I believe she said to be ten minutes, but I was young when she passed so it could be longer. 

In modern times, I see many people who wet a towel, and wrap the towel around the bundle of reeds, then wrap a tarp around that, and will leave them to soak about four hours. I have never tried this method. Once they are pliable, they are ready to be pulled out or, if in a towel, pulled out one at a time, and woven into a basket. Pliable means they are flexible enough to weave, but do not break easily. 

Also, cutting the leaves into fine pieces, and doing the same method will make a twine that can be used for many things. 

Fire torches are made by taking a stock with the brown cattail head on it, and dipping the head fully into melted animal fats, or something similar. Then left to dry. This makes a great primitive torch, and was used for deer hunting at night by the Native Americans, and even many settlers learned this technique from them. 

The stalks of cattails, when dried, are fairly straight, and have been used as arrow shafts since arrows were invented. They have also been used to make trellis for the garden plants to grow on. 

Now, the cattail shaft, and shoots, before things turn brown, can be cut at the base. The leaves will be removed and smashed a little bit, because on the inside is a gel inside of the leaf. it is also found in the young shoots by stripping the leaves off and your character running their hands along the shoot. This is an aloe type of gel that is used for burns, such as first degree and sunburns. It is also used by tribes for relieving tooth pain. It has also been used as an antiseptic gel. 

Another that is used to this day is erosion control. Cattails help to hold the soil. This helps to keep places from turning boggy, but it is also used to keep the edges of ponds from eroding away and letting the pond go dry. Something I have used myself. It does require a little maintenance to keep the pond from being overwhelmed. 

Also, dried brown cattails are great as an animal bedding. The fluff is perfect for chickens, rabbits, ducks, geese, and other small animals, or even baby animals born late in the year. Or maybe early in the year. 

Of course, there are more things cattails can be used for, but this covers all the basics of cattails. 

Fun fact: In Nevada, cattail mats were found that dated back 10,000 years and had not decomposed. 

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Likely to go wrong: Your character slices their hand open trying to pull a cattail leave from the plant. These leaves can be sharp if not handled correctly, and it is best to use a knife or hand sickle to cut them, instead of pulling. 

Likely to go wrong: Your character is harvesting cattails, and is bitten by mosquitos many times in the process. Cattails are a wetland plant, and are more likely to be around mosquitos than most plants. 

Possible to go wrong: Your character tries to use dried cattail leaves to make a basket after the apocalypse.. However, they didn’t know to wet them to make them pliable, and instead break the stiff dry leaves trying to make it work. This is very common with first time learners. 

Possible to go wrong: Your character tries to use fresh leaves to weave a basket. The wet leaf will be harder to work with, and the weave can be loose. As the leaves start to dry, there will be shrinkage that can make them come undone. It is also at a greater risk of getting mold. 

Unlikely to go wrong: Your character is harvesting cattails, and they encounter a venomous water snake. This could be deadly. 

Unlikely to go wrong: Your character knows nothing about when to cook the cattail head and does so when it is brown. Instead of getting the food they hoped for, they get a mouth full of cattail fluff. This has been known to choke people and is used as a cruel joke by some people. 

Unlikely to go wrong: Your character learns the hard way they are allergic to cattails. While this is a very rare allergy, it has happened. 

Improbable but still technically in the realm of possibilities: Your character is harvesting cattail reeds, and finds themselves in an ambush. Cattails have been a cover for invaders and thieves for centuries. 

Improbable but still technically in the realm of possibilities: Your character uses a cattail shaft as an arrow shaft. However, they did not inspect it well and when they shoot it, the shaft breaks, sending it into their arm like a giant splinter. 

Improbable but still technically in the realm of possibilities: Your character is using a cattail as a fire torch, but didn’t know to first dip it in animal fats. When they light it, the head starts to send out its seeds, and they catch on fire before being blown by the wind. This could easily make a forest fire. 

Improbable but still technically in the realm of possibilities: Your character is harvesting cattails and encounters a jaguar that is hiding in the reeds. This could be deadly. 

Thanks for listening! 

And for those wanting a sneak peek, I have a special Black Friday offer I will leave open for the entire month of November. Details will be coming soon. 

Until next time, happy wordsmithing.