Outdoor Elements
The Crazy Life of Cattails
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Cattails are a signature plant of a marsh habitat. It has a unique 2 part flower and wildlife takes advantage of the cattails for food, decoration or a place to call home.
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Outdoor Elements is a local public television program presented by PBS Michiana
Outdoor Elements
The Crazy Life of Cattails
Clip | 2m 54sVideo has Closed Captions
Cattails are a signature plant of a marsh habitat. It has a unique 2 part flower and wildlife takes advantage of the cattails for food, decoration or a place to call home.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorshipCattails are a signature plant of marshes.
They can be identified by their long, slender leaves and their familiar looking cattail brown seed pods.
They actually have very interesting to part flowers.
And I found one here that is in its early stages.
The male part of the flower is up top, loaded with pollen and the pollen drifts down onto the bottom part of the female part of the flower and pollinates it.
When that is completed, that pollination process results in the formation of seeds and those unique fuzzy brown pods.
Cattails provide great habitat for lots of birds like rails and redwing blackbirds that often perch on cartels and even make their nest in them.
And muskrats also feed on cattails and usually decorate their lodges with lots of cattail leaves that they chew off and harvest and swim back to their little lodge.
The cattle plant has unique rhizomes that help it spread out into the marsh.
And I'm going to see if I can dig some up While each cattail pod can actually produce about 250,000 seeds, they can stay viable in the marsh for years.
It's really these underwater rhizomes, these thick underwater stems that sprout up and help the plant propagate and spread out into these massive colonies.
Sometimes the colonies get so thick that land managers do like to control the population to make sure there's still some open water for nesting waterfowl or migratory waterfowl.
But these under water routes, especially these fine ones, help to absorb pollutants and trap floodwaters.
That's why marshes are so hard working.
And of course the great habitat that the colony provides.
Down at the water level for tadpoles and macro invertebrates is essential as well.
So next time you're walking by a marsh be sure to check out the cartels because they're working hard.
Remember, you can find your own outdoor elements when you visit area parks and natural areas.
We'll see you soon.
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