TYPHA, CAT'S TAIL, in botany: A genus of plants belonging to the class of monocotyl, and order of triandria; and in the natural system ranging under the 3d order, Calamarie. The amentum of the male flower is cylindrical; the calyx is tripetalous, but scarcely distinguishable; there is no corolla. The female has a cylindrical amentum below the male; the calyx is composed of villous hair; there is no corolla, and only one seed fixed in a capillary pappus. There are two species, both natives of Britain; the latifolia and angustifolia.
1. Latifolia, great cat's tail, or reed mace, is frequent in ponds and lakes. The stalk is six feet high; the leaves a yard long, hardly an inch wide, convex on one side: the amentum, or cylindrical club, which terminates the stalk, is about six inches long, of a dark brown or fuscous colour. Cattle will sometimes eat the leaves, but Schreber thinks them noxious: the roots have sometimes been eaten in fowls, and the down of the amentum used to stuff cushions and matresses. Linnaeus informs us, that the leaves are used by the coopers in Sweden to bind the hoops of their casks.
2. Angustifolia, narrow-leaved cat's tail, is found in pools and ditches. The leaves are semi-cylindrical, and the male and female spike are remote and slender.