Lake Maxinkuckee, Physical and Biological Survey 191 



So strongly aquatic is it in habit that it deserves to be placed among 

 the water plants. The spikes were well developed in swamps by 

 the Norris Inlet June 22, 1901. 



52. BROAD-LEAVED CAT-TAIL 



TYPHA LATIFOLIA Limueus 



This plant does not form extensive patches here as it frequently 

 does elsewhere. There are a couple of small patches along the 

 northwest shore of the lake north of the Ice-houses. There is a 

 considerable patch along the railroad between Lake Maxinkuckee 

 and Lost Lake, and another patch, a continuation of this, on the 

 northeast shore of Lost Lake. The plants grow quite thick in a 

 patch — the result of its propagating by underground root-stalks. 

 It likes to grow in rich, soft, mucky soil, from hardly in more than 

 a few inches of water to where the soil is simply soaked. In its 

 moister situations it is associated with Scirpi (S. americanus or S. 

 validus), and in its dryer, with sedges. Where it grows in water 

 such algaB as Chsetophora attach themselves to the submerged por- 

 tions of the stem. Various marsh loving birds, as song sparrows, 

 red-winged blackbirds, and particularly the marsh wrens, find it a 

 good hiding place, and the latter bird most frequently chooses the 

 cattail patches for nesting places. Some insects, among them 

 grasshoppers, like the brown of the fruit, and frequently eat it off 

 until the seeds are bare and show. The cat-tail generally comes 

 apart, and the seeds with their fuzzy parachutes are distributed 

 by the wind. In the autumn the leaves turn light brown and 

 dead, beginning at the top and drying so gradually that it is 

 impossible to say just when the stalk is fully dead. 



53. SWAMP LOOSESTRIFE 



DECODON VERTICILLATUS Linnaeus 



Common. There was formerly a narrow patch along the south 

 shore of Outlet Bay, near the Outlet, but this has been removed by 

 grading and cleaning out the brush at this place. It is common 

 along the Outlet of Lost Lake but by far the greatest patches are 

 along the sides of Norris Inlet - where the wide border of these 

 plants forms an almost impenetrable low thicket particularly hard 

 to penetrate because of the loops made by the bowed-over plants. 

 The tips dipping into the water entangle duckweeds and drift of 

 all sorts, so that this plant is one of the most effective agencies in 

 extending the domain of the sedgy marsh into the lake. This 



