Stem: erect, simple, cylindric, firm, air cavities 0.
Leaf: ascending; blade C-shaped or planoconvex in ×-section proximally, flat distally, internal air cavities large; sheath-tip lobes present or not.
Inflorescence: terminal; flowers 1000+; staminate flowers distal, mixed with many papery scales; pistillate flowers proximal, clustered on peg-like compound pedicels; bractlets many, thread-like with enlarged tips generally visible at spike surface, or 0.
Staminate Flower: stamens 2--7 on slender stalk; filaments slender, generally deciduous in fruit.
Pistillate Flower: stalk long-hairy, persistent; ovary chambers 1, style 1, persistent, stigma 1; many modified pistils with enlarged sterile ovary, style deciduous.
Fruit: fusiform, thin-walled, yellow-brown, wind-dispersed.
Species In Genus: +- 15 species: boreal to tropics worldwide.
Etymology: (Greek: to smoke or emit smoke)
Note: Dissecting microscope ideal for
Typha identification (flower structures small), which is complicated by hybridization.
Unabridged Note: Typha angustifolia × Typha latifolia (Typha × glauca Godr., pro sp.) and Typha domingensis × Typha latifolia (Typha × provincialis A. Camus) are generally highly sterile and intermediate between parents in most characters. Typha angustifolia × Typha domingensis are generally highly fertile, thus species boundaries are locally obscure. Hybrids involving 3 species are locally common. Although putative hybrids may produce no or few seeds they generally form long-persistent clones.Jepson eFlora Author: S. Galen Smith
Reference: Smith 2000 FNANM 22:278--285
Index of California Plant Names (ICPN; linked via the Jepson Online Interchange)Key to Typha
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