Cossack asparagus
Cattails grow in marshes, on riverbanks, and near water-filled ditches.
Their flowers become fuzzy, brown rods that look and feel like the tip
of a cat’s tail.
Cattail roots are good to eat. The Cossack people of Russia eat them,
and so do many English people. In England they are called “Cossack
asparagus.”
A bunch of cattails was like a whole bagful of groceries for the
Indians. The Indians ate cattail root bread, cattail flower soup, and
boiled cattail stems.
People once found many uses for cattails. They dried the long leaves and
wove them together to make seats for chairs. They stuffed mattresses
with the soft, cottony down that comes from the brown rods. And they
used cattails for decorations, as many people still do.
