FIELD BOOK OF PONDS AND STREAMS 



in Massachusetts and Connecticut. Other common names 

 are cat-tail flag, cat-o'-nine-tails, candlewicks. Blooms in 

 June-July. Fruits, August-September. 



Animal associates. — An insect population lives upon cat- 

 tails the year around. Plant-lice feed upon the surfaces of 

 their leaves and the leaf -mining moths Arzama obliqua and 

 Nonagria ohlonga tunnel through them. The cat -tail moths, 

 Lymncscia phragmitella, lay their eggs upon the lower, pistil- 

 late half of the spike and their larvae spin silken threads about 

 the flower spike and bind it together. By thus fastening the 

 seeds in place, they preserve them through the winter for their 

 own food and protection. Old flower spikes like these are 

 frayed out two or three times their natural diameter. In 

 winter the larvae are snugly covered and in spring their co- 

 coons are protected there or in the stems. As many as seventy- 

 rix cocoons have been taken from a single pistillate spike. 

 During winter and spring the uninfested spikes lose their seeds 

 entirely but wherever larvas are present the seeds stay fastened 

 until the following summer when the spikes finally break off. 



The larv^ae of the snout beetles, Colandra pertinax, feed on 

 the starchy core of the root-stock and upon the stalks. 



Narrow-leaved cat-tail, Typha angustifolia. — Both leaves 

 and flower-spikes of the narrow-leaved cat-tail (Fig. 60) are 

 more slender than those of the broad-leaved species and the 

 upper staminate section of the flower is conspicuously sepa- 

 rated from the pistillate part by a stretch of bare stem. 



Occurrence. — This species lives in the same marshes and 

 pond borders with the broad-leaved cat-tails but it is not so 

 widely distributed. Mainly along the coast from Nova Scotia 

 to Florida, often in brackish water. Inland it is locally com- 

 mon around the Great Lakes. Blooms June-July. 



Bur-reeds — Sparganiacece 



The bur-reeds are a company of plants which are very 

 similar in looks and habits; they all have reed-like leaves, 



70 



