Domestic Encyclopædia (1802)/Cats Tail

CATS TAIL, or Reed-Mace, the Typha, L. a genus of native plants consisting of two species: 1. The latifolia, or great cats tail, bearing a stalk from six to eight feet high, leaves a yard long, and somewhat sword-shaped, cylindrical catkins, and no blossoms; it grows on the banks of rivers, fish-ponds, and in marshes; 2. The angustifolia, or small cats tail, with semi-cylindrical leaves below, where sheathing the stem; but flat and strap shaped towards the end; it also grows in ditches and ponds, and is frequently met with in the clay-pits of Norfolk and Suffolk. There is, according to Linnæus, a variety of the second species growing among rocks, where its roots are confined; so that it becomes smaller, but its spikes are more numerous. Specimens of it have been found on Hounslow-heath.

The cats tail is one of those neglected plants which might be easily applied to various useful purposes. At present, its leaves only are employed, partly by coopers for calking the bottom of casks, and partly by the manufacturers of rush-bottomed chairs. In Russia, the woolly down surrounding the seed, is mixed with the feathers of quails, and used for stuffing bolsters. But the Germans have lately made successful attempts towards converting the downy catkins of this plant into a more valuable article of commerce. In 1789, M. Weichhan, an ingenious hatter of Ostritz, in Lower Lusatia, transmitted to the Economical Society of Leipzig, an excellent hat, manufactured of one part of this vegetable substance, and two parts of hare's fur. He assured the Society, that the mixture not only worked admirably well under the bow, but likewise formed a complete union when felted. A proportionate addition of Spanish wool, would probably afford a still better material, and produce hats sufficiently fine and elastic.

Professor Förster, of Halle, in the year 1790, sent to the Society above-mentioned, a specimen of blotting paper made of a mixture, consisting partly of the villous hair of the cats tail, and partly of the coarsest linen and woollen rags employed for that purpose; but Dr. Böhmer, whose botanical work we have frequently quoted, asserts, that a good writing paper has been manufactured of the dry down obtained from those catkins, after they had been, in a manner, parched by the heat of the sun; and that such paper was peculiarly fit for drawings and paintings.