Broad-leaved cattail only at first glance seems to ignorant people as an uninteresting and useless plant. Someone in everyday life calls it a reed, someone - a reed. Both of them are wrong. Despite the fact that the broad-leaved cattail is adjacent to both plants in the swamp, they are not relatives. This family is separate. It belongs to only one genus, in which only twenty species have developed, and broad-leaved cattail is the most common in it.
On any river backwater, along the shores of a lake or on a wet watery swamp, it forms dense thickets with strong elastic leaves, very pliable when bent, stretching up to three meters in length. Neither a downpour nor a storm will ever bend or put him on the water. Only the cattail, which has grown old and dried up in parts, lays itself on the water. The photo attached to this article perfectly demonstrates its appearance. Remember it so as not to be confused with other very similar plants.
Rhizome cattail - powerful, but tender at the edges, covered with scales. Their thickness is in the human hand. It clings tightly to the ground in the water, so pull the plantvery hard. The root has as much starch as a potato. This is used by animals and many peoples. For example, people living in the Caucasus bake it perfectly, getting a dish that tastes like beans. Theophrastus wrote about its nutritional properties in ancient times. Only inexperienced modern city dwellers should not flatter themselves about this. Cattail-like broad-leaved plants grow on the water, the rhizomes of which can be poisonous. Only if you are sure that this is the plant in front of you, use it for food. Everyone loves its inflorescences. These are cylinders of dark brown color, about thirty centimeters in length.
Cattail is an ancient and valuable plant for household needs. Until now, in Ukrainian villages there are houses covered with it. The roofs under it are warm, waterproof, and have been standing for a hundred and fifty years. And paleontologists find traces of it in the deepest geological layers belonging to very ancient ones
historical epochs. Many generations of people wove mats and household utensils from its leaves, received fibers from which they produced coarse fabric, second-rate paper. In early times, shepherds and wanderers walked around in waterproof raincoats made of cattail. Peasants stuffed pillows with fluff obtained from inflorescences. And the most fashionable felt hats are obtained only due to the fact that this wonderful vegetable fluff is mixed with wool.
Marine life jackets are sewn on its basis. It has such remarkable buoyancy that it only takes 1 kg to keep the human body afloat.220 g of fluff from cattail inflorescences. As for the production of cotton wool, in the early eras there was no better material. Physically, it is a soft, absorbent, sterile material that has long been used by military medics.
The cattail is very valuable among winemakers. They caulk tubs and barrels with a leaf. Vines are tied with ropes from it, which is why they call it barrel grass. And what ropes in the old days were twisted from it!
