Arumleaf Arrowhead (Duck Potato / Wapato)

Sagittaria cuneata

Also known as Duck Potato, Wapato, Northern Wapato, Arum-leaved Arrowhead, Swamp Potato

At a glance

Family

Alismataceae (water-plantain family)

Type

Aquatic perennial herb

Parts used

Tubers (corms); occasionally young shoots and leaf stalks

Size

Emergent leaves 10 to 30 cm tall, arrow-shaped above water and ribbon-like when submerged; tubers range from marble to golf-ball sized

Bloom

Whorls of small white, three-petaled flowers with yellow centers, midsummer into early fall

Habitat

Shallow ponds, lake edges, slow streams, marshes, and roadside ditches across much of temperate North America

Acquisition

Forage

Traditional remedies in HerbSense

Key benefits

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Traditional staple wild food

Rich in starchy carbohydrates

Naturally gluten-free tuber

Supports wetland wildlife habitat

Traditional uses

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Long before it had a Latin name, this modest pond plant fed people across the continent. Native nations from the Great Lakes to the Pacific Northwest, including Ojibwe, Cree, and Chinookan peoples, waded into cold marsh mud each autumn to dislodge the starchy tubers with their feet, letting them bob free to be gathered by canoe. Boiled or roasted, wapato was eaten much like a potato and was important enough to be traded, stored for winter, and noted with real appreciation by early explorers who depended on it when other food ran short. It has never been widely used as a medicine, but as a trusted, filling wild food it earned a lasting place at the table.

How to grow & use it

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Pairs well with

✦Wild Rice
✦Cattail Shoots
✦Camas

Substitutes

✦Jicama
✦Sagittaria latifolia (broadleaf arrowhead)

Did you know?

Arumleaf arrowhead is such a favorite of waterfowl that hunters nicknamed it duck potato long before botanists settled on Sagittaria cuneata; muskrats, beavers, and diving ducks dig for the very same tubers people once relied on. The plant is also a quiet shape-shifter, growing broad arrowhead leaves in the air but thin, ribbon-like leaves underwater, a trick called heterophylly that helps it cope with changing water depths.

Safety

Cook the tubers before eating; raw, they are acrid and unpleasant. This plant can grow alongside truly deadly look-alikes like water hemlock, so be certain of identification before digging.