MARSH LAND AND OTHER AQUATIC PLANTS 



By DR. R. W. SHUFELDT, C. M. Z. S. 



HiREQUENTLY, while carrying out their instruc- 

 I tions or making their investigations, our foresters 

 are not always confined to the high timber lands 

 or to the forests of the valleys and more level 

 stretches in the regions where they are on guard. Often 

 slow streams have to be crossed, swamps waded, or lakes 

 and big ponds skirted, as they follow the many itineraries 

 throughout the heavily timbered parts of the country 

 where their duties call them. In these latter localities 

 they will be very sure to meet with a great number of 

 our water or aquatic plants. Some are more or less in- 

 conspicuous forms, and so rarely attract attention ; but 

 upon the other hand many of them are among the most 

 visible of any of the representatives of our flora, and the 

 present article will be devoted to giving brief accounts of 

 their characters and other points, through which they 

 may be readily recognized. 



Let pickerel weed be taken as the first example, and 

 we have two good figures of it illustrating the present 

 article. Many who have pulled or paddled through miles 

 of it in a boat or a canoe ; who have seen thousands of its 

 beautiful, purplish-blue flowered spikes, and who are 

 more or less familiar with its stems and leafage, have 

 never haj^pened to find out that the name of the genus in 

 which it belongs is Pontedaria, it having been named for 

 Giulio Pontedera, the famous botanist of Padua, who 

 flourished in 1730, nor that the deer up in the Adiron- 

 dack Mountains regularly go down to the shores of the 



lakes there to browse upon the leaves of this very same 

 pickerel weed. Its flowers are extremely ephemeral, and 

 bloom but for a single day. Mathews is mistaken when 

 he says that it is a tall plant, "with one blunt arrowhead- 

 shaped, dark green, thick leaf," for we frequently find 

 specimens of the plant supporting two such leaves in- 

 deed, such an example is here figured. Another peculiar 

 thing about the pickerel weed is the fact that its fruit 

 a curious little bladder-like affair contains but a single 

 seed. It is also said that the flowers of this plant are 

 sometimes zvhite, and such specimens have been most 

 frequently observed in the northern parts of its range. 

 It blooms from July to the middle of September, and it 

 is often associated with the arrowhead, to be described 

 further on. 



Pickerel weed flowers are comparatively safe from 

 the ruthlessness of the wild-flower vandals, for most of 

 them are found along the river banks, and those growing 

 in a pond are too far out in the water to be reached, 

 which fact is the best protection that the plant possesses. 



Doubtless pickerel lay their eggs among the leaves ; 

 and there is no doubt but that this splendid fresh-water 

 game fish is frequently found in abundance where the 

 plant grows. Then, too, the insects attracted by the blos- 

 soms often fly low over the surface of the water ; a hun- 

 gry pickerel may take a fancy to some of these, so that, 

 by a sudden leap, he may succeed in ca|)turing such tid- 

 bits. It may be said in passing that the pickerel weed 



OUR LARGEST SPECIKS OK URASSHOFl'ER 



ui^''*! 'u *^^ lu'j^'er grasshopper or locust of the southern United States. It is a remarkable large-bodied genus, with short red wings, and shiny, jet 

 black body; the antennae or horns are also short. Its scientific name is RhomaicHin micropterum, and it has a near relative in the Vi'cst which is a 

 greenish species. In the environs of New Orleans, the very small, intensely black young ones hatch out in the cracks in the dry, verdureless patches 

 in the woods, and at a short distance look like little black anastomosing veins on the ground. Dr. I.. O. Howard says: "It occurs frequently in 

 enormous numbers in the rice fields near the mouth of the Savannah River, and is an extremely disagreeal)le object on which to step; in fact, it 

 reminds one of Thackeray's famous remark when he swallowed his first saddle-rock oyster." The two males here shown are New Orleans specimens. 



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