When we moved out to our tiny rural Nevada town last year, I knew there would be new medicinal plants to research. And because I was busy with settling in during the fall, I also recognized that I’d have to wait for spring to learn what new options I had here.
In the meantime, I stumbled across some reference to cattails being medicinal. That had to be some kind of joke or serious stretch of the imagination. Cattails are so easily identified, so common. If there was anything to the idea of them being medicinal, I think I should have heard about it before now.
After all, there was no mention of it in Buhner’s Herbal Antibiotics or Herbal Antivirals references. Of course, not all medicines are antibiotics or antivirals, and cattail is neither of those, so that could be why. But another favorite, Kane’s Medicinal Plants of the Western Mountain States, doesn’t include it, either. Nor does Coffman’s The Herbal Medic or Chatfield’s Medicine from the Mountains. However, cattail does have a couple of pages in both Kershaw’s Edible & Medicinal Plants of the Rockies and Foster and Hobbs’ Western Medicinal Plants and Herbs. Unfortunately, neither book cites any scientific journals to support medicinal use. They only share what purposes early and Native Americans used these plants for. And there are precious few references in the database for the National Center for Biotechnology Information (ncbi.nlm.nih.gov).
Medicinal uses of cattail abound. Unfortunately, there are very few laboratory trials or clinical studies to support their use. One documents that a gel produced from a related species of cattail hastened the healing of wounds in rats.[1] Alcohol and water extracts of cattail pollen have been shown to exert a significant anti-inflammatory effect in rats.[2]
HARVEST
There is no confusing a mature cattail with any other plant. Nothing else forms the brown flower spike. However, the young leaves can be confused with plants that are toxic. Be absolutely sure that what you are harvesting is really a cattail.
The entire plant is medicinal. The green flower heads that develop into the brown spikes that look like hot dogs or corn dogs are harvested for medicine in the spring and early summer. Pollen is gathered in the spring. It’s really easy to see the pollen on the brown spikes. You need to have a large bag to shake it into. Then the pollen is lightly toasted and stored in a glass jar, in a cool, dark place.
PREPARATION
Flower head, green.
Powder. In the fall, when the female stalks have ripened, they are filled with about a quarter of a million seeds, all of which are attached to a whole lot of fluff. This fluff, or down as it is sometimes called, can be dried into a powder and used alone or in a salve for healing. The down was also used by Native Americans for dressing wounds, diapers, pillows and bedding, and menstrual pads. It is really fluffy.
Infusion. To make an infusion, simmer the roots in milk or water. Another option is to use toasted pollen.
Juice/gel. Cut off the stem of the cattail at its base, and then squeeze the juice out.
Poultice. A root poultice is prepared by pounding the root until a gel is released.
As with other articles on the medicinal uses of herbs, the footnotes are provided so that you can go to the exact source of the information. Unfortunately, there is precious little additional guidance on usage. And normally that means I just don’t write about that plant. However, I decided to make an exception for cattail. Cattails are so easily recognized. They have dozens of food and other non-medicinal uses. Because they are used as food, they are already known to be safe for usage as medicine, other than the usual caveats of not being used by pregnant or nursing women. They’ve been used for hundreds or thousands of years by people the world over. They just don’t have much in the way of modern research to support their use. If we have run out of our other conventional pharmaceutical and herbal options for managing certain conditions, cattail may serve well as a backup.
HISTORICAL USAGE
- Dental
- Tooth extraction
- Juice applied as topical anesthetic
- Gastrointestinal
- Abdominal cramps
- Root (infusion)[3]
- Diarrhea
- Dysentery, chronic
- Blood in stool
- Pollen infusion[8]
- Tapeworms
- Pollen tincture[9]
- Respiratory
- Skin (boiled or raw rootstocks pounded to jelly-like paste and this poultice used for the following)
- Bleeding
- Root poultice[13]
- Boils
- Burns
- Rootstock poultice
- Powder
- Chafing prevention
- Powder[14]
- Hemorrhoids[15]
- Inflammation
- Insect bites
- Juice
- Leprosy
- Tincture[16]
- Smallpox pustules
- Down in powder or salve
- Wounds
- Powder
- Juice
- Urogenital
[1] Vandana Panda, et al., “Wound healing activity of the inflorescence of Typhi elephantina (cattail),” International Journal of Lower Extremity Wounds, March 2014, Vol 13 No 1, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24351705/ (accessed 28 April 2021).
[2] Saroj S. Varpe, et al., “Evaluation of the anti-inflammatory activity of Typha angustifolia pollen grains extracts in experimental animals,” Indian Journal of Pharmacology, November-December 2012, Vol 44 No 6, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3523511/ (accessed 28 April 2021).
[3] Steven Foster, et al., Western Medicinal Plants and Herbs, 2002, 381.
[4] Steven Foster, et al., Western Medicinal Plants and Herbs, 2002, 381.
[5] Saroj S. Varpe, et al., “Evaluation of the anti-inflammatory activity of Typha angustifolia pollen grains extracts in experimental animals,” Indian Journal of Pharmacology, November-December 2012, Vol 44 No 6, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3523511/ (accessed 28 April 2021).
[6] Steven Foster, et al., Western Medicinal Plants and Herbs, 2002, 381.
[7] Saroj S. Varpe, et al., “Evaluation of the anti-inflammatory activity of Typha angustifolia pollen grains extracts in experimental animals,” Indian Journal of Pharmacology, November-December 2012, Vol 44 No 6, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3523511/ (accessed 28 April 2021).
[8] Steven Foster, et al., Western Medicinal Plants and Herbs, 2002, 381.
[9] Saroj S. Varpe, et al., “Evaluation of the anti-inflammatory activity of Typha angustifolia pollen grains extracts in experimental animals,” Indian Journal of Pharmacology, November-December 2012, Vol 44 No 6, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3523511/ (accessed 28 April 2021).
[10] Steven Foster, et al., Western Medicinal Plants and Herbs, 2002, 381.
[11] “Native American and Other Ancient Remedies,” Legends of America, https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1418&context=ebl (accessed 28 April 2021).
[12] Anthony Grahame, The Incredibly Usable Cattail, Ethnobotanical Leaflets, 13 January 1999, https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1418&context=ebl (accessed 28 April 2021).
[13] Steven Foster, et al., Western Medicinal Plants and Herbs, 2002, 381.
[14] Steven Foster, et al., Western Medicinal Plants and Herbs, 2002, 381.
[15] Steven Foster, et al., Western Medicinal Plants and Herbs, 2002, 381.
[16] A. Gupta, et al., “Antileprotic potential of ethnomedicinal herbs: A review,” Drug Invention Today, 2010, Vol 2 No 3, https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Parveen-Bansal/publication/311913006_Antileprotic_Potential_of_Ethnomedicinal_Herbs_A_Review/links/5862580f08ae329d6201a720/Antileprotic-Potential-of-Ethnomedicinal-Herbs-A-Review.pdf (accessed 28 April 2021).
[17] Steven Foster, et al., Western Medicinal Plants and Herbs, 2002, 381.
[18] Steven Foster, et al., Western Medicinal Plants and Herbs, 2002, 381.
[19] Steven Foster, et al., Western Medicinal Plants and Herbs, 2002, 381.
[20] Steven Foster, et al., Western Medicinal Plants and Herbs, 2002, 381.
[21] Steven Foster, et al., Western Medicinal Plants and Herbs, 2002, 381.
[22] Saroj S. Varpe, et al., “Evaluation of the anti-inflammatory activity of Typha angustifolia pollen grains extracts in experimental animals,” Indian Journal of Pharmacology, November-December 2012, Vol 44 No 6, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3523511/ (accessed 28 April 2021).
[23] Steven Foster, et al., Western Medicinal Plants and Herbs, 2002, 381.
[24] Steven Foster, et al., Western Medicinal Plants and Herbs, 2002, 381.
[25] Steven Foster, et al., Western Medicinal Plants and Herbs, 2002, 381.
[26] Saroj S. Varpe, et al., “Evaluation of the anti-inflammatory activity of Typha angustifolia pollen grains extracts in experimental animals,” Indian Journal of Pharmacology, November-December 2012, Vol 44 No 6, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3523511/ (accessed 28 April 2021).
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