The common cattail is a native, opportunistic North American wetland species. The narrow-leaved cattail is possibly an exotic or hybrid. Cattails can be found in damp soil or shallow water where sufficient nutrients are available. It is a common site along expressways, in artificial ditches and shallow ponds, at the edges of calm waters, in consistently damp patches of rural and suburban yards, and in freshwater marshes. This prolific plant plays an important role as a source of food and shelter for different marsh-dwelling animals, especially when cattails form large stands on relatively open, wet soils abutted by water.
Cattails reproduce sexually by seed and vegetatively by the production of rhizomes.
The flower head of the parent plant can produce 250,000 seeds, which are then wind-dispersed. Seeds remain viable in the seed bank for up to 100 years. Cattail seeds prefer freshwater, and will not germinate unless saturated in at least 0.5-1 inch of water. Cattails also reproduce asexually by rhizomes. During the first summer of vegetative propagation, rhizomes grow about two feet in length.