Seasides and Strand Plants 



a lodgment, the land will probably be enclosed and form 

 part of the ordinary farm lands. 



The conditions vary greatly along such an estuary, for 

 sometimes the sea is encroaching, and near freshwater 

 streams comparatively deep water may be found close 

 inshore. There are a whole series of plants which are 

 adapted to these varying conditions. There are estuarine 

 reed-beds of Scirpus Tabernaemontani which act like 

 Phragmites (see p. 130). But its stems are firmly 

 fastened down by strong anchoring roots. In such a 

 reed-bed one may count forty to fifty upright stalks in a 

 square foot of surface, so that they will efficiently strain 

 out of the water floating rubbish of every description. 

 Such a bed may advance about 9 inches seawards 

 in a year, and is attacked on the land side by Armeria, 

 Aster, scurvygrass, as well as by Vaucheria, Ectocarpus, 

 and other Algae. So it changes into an Armeria flat or 

 directly into a grass meadow. 



On the La Plata river one finds quite similar arrange- 

 ments for colonisation by Scirpus montevidensis, which 

 grows in I or 2 feet of water, and in shallower 

 water Eleocharis bonariensis forms a close, grass-like 

 sward which is colonised by a Hydrocotyle and Spilanthes 

 stolonifera. 



In South America, also, seashore mud is sometimes 

 artificially reclaimed by means of a grass, Spartina 

 brasiliensis, which is planted out in rows at depths of 

 I foot below the surface.' 



Lord Montagu de Beaulieu has stated that many 

 acres of the mud in Southampton Water has been 

 naturally reclaimed by the British species of Spartina ; 

 but, so far as the author knows, no attempt has been 

 made at plantation in this country. Such estuaries 

 form, however, but a small part of the coast-line. The 

 great stretches of shingle which are for ever travelling 



163 



