I picked cattails for a patient in a nursing home and was told that it was illegal to pick them
1 Answer
Lucy’s answer here is perfect!…
cattails are an important part of the ecosystem around wetlands…. so you picked a few…. now”” if everyone picked a few””, there could be a lot fewer seeds available out there in the wild, huh?.. and then there’d be no new plants… and the wetlands would suffer…. so it’s more that you are DISCOURAGED from picking them than being illegal….. but the tales that it’s ‘illegal’ have gone a long way toward getting folks to stop messing with them!!….
there was a time not long ago when ‘weeds’ as dried flower bouquets were all the rage… cattails were gathered by the bundles to put in those bouquets… that might be where the ‘illegal’ thing started….
I know our stands of cattails took an awful hit in the last few years because of our drought.. the lakes receeded so far that the cats were left high and dry…. things are coming back now, tho…..
next time take pictures of them to the folks in the nursing home… they’ll last longer, too…..