10 



BULLETIN 465, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



for the time. All parts of the plant are eaten by ducks, but the 

 tender winter buds (fig. 8) and rootstocks are relished most. Wild 

 celery buds can usually be obtained only by the diving ducks, as the 

 bluebills, redhead, canvas-back, and scoters. The nondiving species, 

 as the mallard, black duck, baldpate, and the geese, get an occasional 

 bud, but more often they feed upon the leaves. Wild fowl not thus 

 far specifically mentioned which also feed upon wild celery include 

 the wood ducks, pintail, ruddy duck, buffle-head, whistler, green- 

 winged and blue- 

 winged teals, greater 



and lesser scaups or 

 bluebills, white-winged 

 and surf scoters, and 

 whistling swan. 



DESCRIPTION OF PLANT. 



Wild celery (fig. 4) 

 is a wholly submerged 

 plant with long, flexi- 

 ble, ribbonlike leaves of 

 light translucent green 

 and of practically uni- 

 form width (anywhere 

 from one-fourth to 

 three - fourths of an 

 inch) from root to tip. 

 Of course the leaves 

 are narrowed near the 

 tip and mnj be some- 

 what serrate or wavy- 

 margined there, but 

 they are never ex- 

 panded and the vena- 

 tion is peculiar. A leaf held up to the light displays numerous fine 

 straight parallel veins running the whole length. There are, besides, 

 one median and two lateral prominent veins connected at intervals 

 by irregular cross veinlets (see fig. 5). Wild celery may be dis- 

 tinguished from eelgrass (Zostera marina), which lives in brackish 

 or salt water, by the fact that its leaves grow in bundles from the. 

 rootstocks, while those of eelgrass arise singly and alternate on oppo- 

 site sides of the stem. The leaves of wild celery generally are more 

 than a fourth of an inch wide, while those of eelgrass are about that 

 width or narrower. Pipewort {Eriocaulon) , a fresh- water plant, 



Fig. 4. — Wild celery. (Reduced. 



B39IM 



From Reichenbach.) 



