Cattails are, due to their enormous growth rate and yield, optimally suited as raw material for industrial use. Typha stock comprise resilient, natural monocultures with an annual production rate of 15 to 20 tonnes of dry matter per hectare. This corresponds to four to five times the amount that local evergreen forests produce. Cultivation in lowland moors and valley plains in Germany would offer a sufficient basis to cover the total demand for insulation and wall construction materials. The special structural characteristics of cattails support the production of construction materials that offer a unique combination of load-bearing capacity and insulation. The plant’s structure entails the particular suitability of the typha leaf mass for creating innovative building materials 1,2. Due to the combination of tensile strength of stem fibre and elastic sponge-like tissue, leaves are tear and break resistant, flexible and maintain their shape even in dried condition. These characteristics provide remarkable load-bearing capacity and excellent insulation properties. Behaviour of leaf mass under tensile and compressive stress is completely different along the leaf axis from base to tip than perpendicular to it: along the axis, the leaf material resists high compression loads of approximately 1 N/mm and even higher tensile stress. Perpendicular to this axis, elastic deformation sets in already at very low stress of 0.01 N/mm and predominantly remains in reversible ranges. The special qualities of typha insulation panels originate in these diverse characteristics. Their production is based on laying out typha-leaf particles randomly, yet parallel to the panel plane and binding them with magnesite. The result is a material that can be created within a relatively simple procedure. (Martin Krus, Werner Theuerkorn, Theo Großkinsky, Georgi Georgiev)