238 A NATURALIST IN THE GREAT LAKES REGION 



FIG. 339. The reed 



Phragmites communis. 



stems. The scales of the flower cluster in the former are reddish 

 brown; in the latter, yellow brown. Scirpus validus (Fig. 329), 

 the great bulrush, may be 8 feet high and proportionally lusty. 

 The sheaths at the bases of the soft, 

 light green leaves are soft and rather 

 transparent. In Scirpus atrocinctus the 

 bases of the bracts that are below the 

 flower cluster are black. 



In the bog rushes (Juncus) the flowers 

 and fruits are not inclosed in husklike 

 scales as they are in the bulrushes. The 

 leaves are pithy or in some species 

 hollow. The small flowers are clustered 

 but not in spikes. The flower cluster 

 appears to be on the side of the stem 

 rather than on the end in /. balticus 

 (Fig. 330). The plants appear in the 

 latter species in rows arising from the un- 

 derground stem. There are many other species such as J. tennis 

 (Fig. 331), /. canadensis (Fig. 332), /. e/usus (Fig. 333). 



Every stalk of the spike rushes ends in a 

 spike of blossoms. The stalks are spongy 

 inside. Those of Eleocharis acicularis (Fig. 

 334) are not over 4 inches in height (unless 

 the plant is growing submerged) , and hairlike, 

 they are so fine. Eleocharis palustris is similar 

 but stouter. Its stalks are cylindrical; its 

 fruits, lenticular. The stalks of E. acicularis 

 are more or less four-angled, and the fruits are 

 triangular in cross-section. 



Cat-tails come in next, the common, Typha FIG. 340. Sweet 

 latifolia, and the narrow-leaved, T. angustifolia. fla s> Acorus Calamus. 

 Then more or less mixed with the preceding plants come a num- 

 ber of marginal plants: bur reed (Fig. 336); arrowheads, Sagit- 

 taria -variabilis (Fig. 337), and S. heterophyla; pickerel weed; wild 



