A cattail is a tall wetland plant with a distinctive brown, fuzzy seedhead that looks remarkably like a hotdog on a stick. These plants grow in marshes, along pond edges, and in ditches where the soil stays wet. The brown “hotdog” part is actually made of thousands of tiny seeds packed tightly together.

Cattails have been incredibly useful to humans for thousands of years. The fluffy seeds were once used as stuffing for pillows and life jackets. Native Americans wove the long, flat leaves into baskets and mats. The roots contain starch and can be eaten, and even the young shoots taste a bit like cucumbers. During World War II, cattail fluff was used to stuff military jackets when other materials were scarce.

If you pull apart a mature cattail seedhead, it bursts into a cloud of fluffy material that floats away on the wind, spreading seeds across the marsh. The plant spreads so successfully that a single cattail can turn into a thick stand of hundreds within a few years. Wildlife depends on cattails too: red-winged blackbirds build nests among the stalks, and muskrats eat the roots.