Typha latifolia
Common name
Great reedmace
Family
Typhaceae
Flora category
Vascular – Exotic
Structural class
Herbs - Monocots
Conservation status
Not applicable
Habitat
Grows on the margins of freshwater bodies, in shallow water on a range of substrates. Not known to be established in NZ, although may be present in cultivation.
Detailed description
Erect shoots 0.15-0.3 m; flowering shoots 10-20 mm thick in middle, stems 3-7 mm thick near inflorescence. Leaves: usually glaucous when fresh; sheath sides papery or membranous, margins narrowly clear, summit tapered into blade to distinctly shouldered, or rarely with firm, papery auricles; mucilage glands at sheath-blade transition usually colorless, obscure, absent from sheath center and blade; widest blades on shoot 10-23(-29) mm wide when fresh, 5-20 mm when dry, distal blades about equaling inflorescence. Inflorescences: staminate spikes contiguous with pistillate or in some clones separated by to 40(-80) mm of naked axis, about as long as pistillate, c.10-20 cmm thick at anthesis; staminate scales colorless to straw-colored, filiform, simple, c.4.0 x 0.05 mm; pistillate spikes in flower pale green drying brownish, later blackish brown or reddish brown, in fruit often mottled with whitish patches of pistil-hair tips, 50-250 x 5-8 mm in flower, 24-36 mm thick in fruit; compound pedicels in fruit bristle-like, variable in same spike, 1.5-3.5 mm; pistillate bracteoles absent. Staminate flowers 5-12 mm; anthers 1-3 mm, thecae yellow, apex dark brown; pollen in tetrads. Pistillate flowers 2-3 mm in flower, 10-15 mm in fruit; pistil-hair tips colorless, whitish in mass, not enlarged; stigmas persistent, forming solid layer on spike surface, pale green in flower, drying brownish, then reddish brown or usually distally blackish, spathulate, ovate to ovate-lanceolate, 0.6-1.0 x 0.2-0.25 mm; carpodia exceeded by and hidden among pistil hairs, straw-colored, apex rounded. Seeds numerous. 2n = 30.
Similar taxa
Similar in appearance to native raupo (Typha orientalis).
Flowering
Early summer
Flower colours
Brown, Yellow
Etymology
typha: From the Greek name for this plant
National Pest Plant Accord species
This plant is listed in the 2020 National Pest Plant Accord. The National Pest Plant Accord (NPPA) is an agreement to prevent the sale and/or distribution of specified pest plants where either formal or casual horticultural trade is the most significant way of spreading the plant in New Zealand. For up to date information and an electronic copy of the 2020 Pest Plant Accord manual (including plant information and images) visit the MPI website.
Life Cycle Comments
Perennial