WILD RICE — CHAMBLISS 375 



charged into the air to be carried by the wind to other plants. This 

 pollen takes no part in the fertilization of the female flowers of the 

 same flower cluster. The male flowers on long drooping branches 

 arranged in whorls add beauty and symmetry to this tall, slender, 

 stately plant attractively dressed with long, broad, hanging leaves. 



The slender, flexible panicle, when fully protruded, may be 30 to 

 50 inches above the terminal leaf. On its topmost branches the seeds 

 are developing very irregularly. As they approach maturity, which 

 normally occurs within 15 days after fertilization, the seeds drop very 

 readily, passing quickly through the water to the mud bottom be- 

 low. They do not float and are soon anchored in a soft bed by the 

 many bristlelike hairs on their outer surface. These structures, by 

 their number and arrangement, serve to fasten the seeds more se- 

 curely in the mud. Here they lie until the following spring, when the 

 majority of them germinate. 



Zizania seed cannot be kept in dry storage like other seed. To 

 retain its viability it must be kept in a wet state and at a tempera- 

 ture that will prevent fermentation and control germination. There 

 is no harvesting of this seed in eastern United States for human use. 

 Many birds, however, feast upon it and in so doing assist in the 

 natural sowing of enough seed to provide for next season's crop. The 

 dense brown mat of fallen plants and crumpled foliage, which soon 

 covers the marsh, will again look green in spring when the young 

 plants, sprouting from this self-sown seed, push their way through 

 and above this organic debris. 



The birds that feed upon this maturing grain are the bobolinks and 

 red-winged blackbirds. Late in August and early in September these 

 birds may be seen in large flocks settling on the plants of Zizania 

 aquatica at meal time, which continues throughout the day. The 

 wading birds, such as the sora, feed upon the fallen seeds that lie in 

 shallow water, or exposed on the ground, when the tide is out. Many 

 species of diving ducks feed upon the seed that has settled in the mud. 



The center of the largest area of this uncultivated grain is in the 

 region of the adjacent sections of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Manitoba, 

 and Ontario, which is crowded with alluvial-bottom lakes, serving as 

 sources of many rivers that for great distances meander through a 

 flat country and give the landscape the appearance of one irmnense 

 marsh. The Fox River, on which the earlier explorers traveled from 

 the Great Lakes region to the Mississippi River, may be taken as 

 typical of such streams, filled for the greater part of its length with 

 Zizania. The Indians ^ tell us that this river was made by a mon- 

 strous serpent that spent the night in the marshes between Lake 

 Winnebago and the Wisconsin River. Having obtained during the 



» Thwaites. Reuben Gold, Historic waterways, p. 153, 1888. 



