26 Spartina Problems 



Continent where it spread for decades in ever widening circles till it 

 lost itself in the waterless barriers of the Middle East. 



The subject of the present article is Spartina Townsendii, a reed- 

 like grass which is rapidly monopolising the extensive tidal mud flats 

 of the south coast of England from Dorset to Sussex, with headquarters 

 at Southampton and Poole Harbour. In addition to being a botanical 

 phenomenon of the first order, perhaps unique in the recorded history 

 of vegetation, the spread of Spartina is raising economic problems which 

 will have to be grappled with sooner or later. Though still in the phase 

 of youth Spartina already occupies dozens of square miles of mud flats 

 in pure stands which continually get denser and denser. There seems 

 little risk of error in asserting that in the future this area will expand 

 to hundreds or thousands of miles. Subject to climatic limitations, 

 wherever there is mud there will be Spartina. It is time for us to learn 

 something about the properties of this amazing plant. 



A century ago the only species of Spartina known in Europe was 

 S. stricta, a low-growing species common on mud flats from Devon to 

 Lincoln and on the Continent. In 1829 this was joined by a second 

 species, S. alternijlora, supposed to have been introduced accidentally 

 by shipping from America. Its occurrence in Southampton Water and 

 at one other spot, the mouth of the River Adour, at the southern end of 

 the Bay of Biscay, was well known to botanical geographers in the 

 middle of last century 1 . In 1870 a third species, S. Townsendii, the 

 subject of this article, made its appearance in Southampton Water, and 

 it is the spread of this form in recent years which has attracted general 

 attention. Gradually it has made its way east and west from South- 

 ampton along the sheltered coast line behind the Isle of Wight. It 

 occurs in special abundance at the Beaulieu and Lymington Rivers and 

 off Keyhaven, behind the Hurst Castle spit. In 1899 the first specimen 

 was discovered in Poole Harbour 2 and in 20 years it has spread into 

 all the inlets and bays in the most remarkable manner 3 . From Poole 

 Harbour no specimens of either S. stricta or S. alternijlora have been 

 reported. 



Into Christchurch Harbour, midway between Poole and Hurst Castle, 



1 A. De Candolle, Geographic Botanique, 1855, p. 1053. 



2 E. F. Linton, Flora of Bournemouth, p. 246. 



3 For a summary of records of the distribution of Spartina Townsendii and its allies, 

 see 0. Stapf : Mud-binding Grasses, Keiv Bull., 1907, p. 190; Gardener's Chronicle, Spartina 

 Townsendii, 1908, p. 33; Townsend's Grass or Rice Grass, Proc. Bournemouth Nat. Sci. 

 Soc, Vol. V, 1913. For Poole Harbour, see R. V. Sherring's three Spartina Reports in 

 Proc. Bournemouth Nat. Sci. Soc, Vols, v, vn and ix. 



