Cattails and Phragmites

     Cattails and phragmites are picturesque wetland plants that flourish wherever the soil is at least damp most of the time.  They also do well as emergents in shallow water.  Dense stands of these two plants can cover acres of moist or wet soil or are no larger than an average dining room table.  They grow and spread rapidly on the edges of inland ponds, and in marshes and roadside ditches where water collects.  Cattails can be up to six feet tall and phragmites can grow to twelve feet.  Both species have long, grass-like leaves above the water, roots that run through the mud in every direction for some distances and send up green shoots of leafy plants at regular intervals, and decorative seed heads.  Those seed heads are most picturesque in winter on the still upright, but dead and dried vegetation above the mud.  These plants and their leaves wave delightfully in the wind, which adds to their beauties.  The wind also disperses the seeds of these wetland plants, which is why they are scattered abundantly across North America, including here in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.
     Cattails are native to North America, and are scattered across much of this planet.  This plant is most noted for its dark-brown, hotdog-like seed heads on top of tall stems.  Those seed heads are most picturesque during autumn and winter, and are unique in the plant world, making them the more attractive.  And when male red-winged blackbirds, with their black feathering and red shoulder patches, cling to cattail seed heads to sing in early spring, the beauty of the seed heads is complete.
     Phragmites, also called common reed, is a perennial grass originally from Eurasia.  The several phragmites seed plumes on top of each seed stalk appear fluffy and decorative before the low-slanting, winter sunlight.  Phragmites is most abundant along sea coasts, but lives inland as well, including in roadside ditches, where they are most notable.
     Stands of cattails and phragmites provide shelter and food through the year for several kinds of wildlife.  Muskrats eat the roots and shoots of cattails and pile cattail stems they cut off with their teeth in the middle of shallow ponds and marshes.  They live in the dry upper parts of those cattail stem heaps. 
     Red-winged blackbird and marsh wren females build cradles of cattail leaves on cattail stems several inches above the normal water level.  There the eggs and young of these marsh species are less vulnerable to predators.
     Mallard ducks lay clutches of eggs on drier ground under these marsh plants.  That vegetation conceals the hens on their nests and the resulting ducklings.
     Raccoons and white-tailed deer are sheltered in the larger stands of these wetland plants.  Those mammals can roam about looking for food during the day without being spotted, until they step out of those thick stands of vegetation. 
     Late in summer and into early fall, flocks of ducks, including migrant blue-winged teal and wood ducks, red-winged blackbirds, barn swallows, tree swallows and other kinds of birds shelter overnight in larger stands of cattails and phragmites before they migrate farther south for the winter.  The human observer can watch the birds coming into those dense beds of vegetation at dusk until they
retire south.  
     The beauties and uses of cattails and phragmites are many.  We can enjoy their beauties and some species of wildlife use them for food and cover.  Look for them on pond edges and in marshes and roadside ditches.