The lower parts of the leaves can be eaten in salads. The leaves are used for weaving, for padding seams in boats, and for packing material between barrels. The flowers, or cattails, can be eaten if they are roasted when young. Muskrats, beavers, and geese dine on cattails. Red-wing blackbirds, bitterns, coots, marsh wrens, and other shore birds nest among cattails.
Muskrats use cattails to build their houses.
Cattails can be soaked in oil to be used as torches. Cattail stems are edible either raw or boiled. A pioneer or Native American's aching tooth was treated by rubbing juice from the stem onto the gums . Here the cattail has begun to pollinate. Note the yellow pollen on the fingers of the person in the picture.