Southern Cat Tail

Typha domingensis aggressively invades and forms nearly pure stands in brackish or nutrient-enriched wetlands in the Florida Everglades and elsewhere. It is established but does not mature fruits on the cold coast of northern California. There are specimens of putative hybrids with T. angustifolia beyond the main range of T. domingensis, in southeastern and northwestern Nebraska and southeastern Kentucky, and with T. latifolia in southeastern Nebraska. Vegetative T. domingensis or hybrids occur on the Atlantic Coast north as far as Delaware. (S. G. Smith, unpublished). The northern Illinois locality is a power plant cooling pond. The Wyoming record is from a hot spring and may be a hybrid with T. latifolia. Typha domingensis probably should be treated as a highly variable pantropic and warm temperate species, occurring to 40º E north and south latitude worldwide, and needing study to determine infraspecific taxa and delimitation from related species (B. G. Briggs and L. A. S. Johnson and B. G. Briggs 1968; S. G. Smith 1987). For hybrids see also genus and key.

Other References (plus corrections and additions) missing from this file. Have added and corrected these data with Bob’s 2d blue-line.

Robust plant 1.5-3.0 m or more tall, stem somewhat stout; leaf sheath usually open at throat, margin free; lamina 5-12 mm broad. Flowering stem equal or somewhat smaller than the leaves; male and female flowers separated; staminate spike covered with pointed or linear hairs, hairs often laciniate at apex; covered with bracts; apiculate, translucent; pollens usually free; female spikes with c. 1 mm long peduncles; stigma linear and usually equal to the hairs and bracts.

Erect shoots 150--400 cm, not glaucous; flowering shoots 1--2 cm thick in middle; stems 3--4 mm thick near spike. Leaves: sheath sides membranous, margin broadly clear, summit tapered to blade or with persistent, membranous auricles; mucilage glands at sheath-blade transition orange-brown, numerous on entire sheath and proximal 1--10 cm of blade; widest blades on shoot 6--18 mm wide when fresh, 5--15 mm when dry; distal blade about equaling inflorescence. Inflorescences: staminate spike separated from pistillate by (0--)1--8 cm of naked axis, ca. 1.4 X longer than pistillate, 1 cm thick at anthesis; staminate scales straw-colored to mostly bright orange-brown, variable in same spike, linear to cuneate, often laciniate distally, to 3--4  0.3 mm; pistillate spikes in flower when fresh bright cinnamon-brown with whitish stigmas (drying brownish), later orange- (to medium) brown, in fruit generally paler as stigmas and often bracteole blades wear off, ca. 6--35 cm  5--6 mm in flower, 15--25 mm in fruit; compound pedicels in fruit peg-like, ca. 0.6--0.9 mm; pistillate bracteole blades forming spike surface before flowering, later slightly exceeded by stigmas and slightly exceeding pistil hairs, straw-colored to bright orange-brown, much paler than to nearly same color as stigmas, irregularly narrowly to broadly spatulate or lanceolate, 0.8  0.1--0.3 mm, mostly wider than stigmas, apex variable in same inflorescence or different plants, acute or acuminate. Staminate flowers 5 mm; anthers 2--2.5 mm, thecae yellow, apex bright orange-brown; pollen in single grains. Pistillate flowers 2 mm in flower, 8--9 mm in fruit; pistil-hair tips straw-colored to orange-brown in mass, usually with 1 subapical bright orange-brown, generally enlarged cell; stigmas often deciduous in fruit, in flower erect, elongating, bending to form surface mat, white in flower when fresh, later bright orange-brown, narrowly linear-lanceolate, ca. 1  0.1 mm; carpodia slightly exceeded by pistil hairs, usually evident at fruiting spike surface, straw-colored, orange-spotted, apex broadly rounded. 2n = 30.

Distribution: Pantropical.

Ala., Ariz., Ark., Calif., Colo., Del., Fla., Ga., Ill., Kans., Ky., La., Md., Miss., Mo., Nebr., Nev., N.Mex., N.C., Okla., S.C., Tex., Utah, Va., Wyo.; Mexico; West Indies; Central America; South America; West Indies; Eurasia; Africa; Pacific Islands (New Zealand); Australia.

Fl. Per.: Most of the year.

Flowering spring--summer.

Often in brackish water or wet soil; 0--2000m.