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DESCRIPTION:
Cattails are perennial aquatic weeds found in rice fields, drainage ditches,
and irrigation canals. The fast-growing seedlings have thick, erect, light
green leaves and pithy stems which distinguished
them from grass seedlings. The first leaf is whitish in color near its base.
Mature plants may be 5 to 10 feet (1.5 - 3 m) tall and topped with a characteristic
cigar-shaped flower cluster or fruit.
Cattails have a flower-bearing, unjointed, pithy stem that is nearly as long
as the plant's spearlike, parallel-veined leaves and large creeping rootstocks.
The flower spike becomes a cottony or velvety
cluster of wind-dispersed seeds that breaks open when mature. Seeds germinate
in April, and plants mature from July through August. A similar species, common
tule, can be distinguished by its very
short leaves and flowers produced in loose clusters.
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