Reconquest of the Water 
or of Equisetum limosum or of Poa (Glyceria) fluitans, 
but the commonest and best example of the reed 
association is Phragmites communis. It is a hardy 
and common plant, for it grows in New Zealand, 
America (except the Amazon valley), Mesopotamia, the 
far north of Europe, and Siberia, in East Turkestan, 
and in China, as well as all over temperate Europe. 
Its prostrate stems, growing to 40 or 50 feet and 
giving off hundreds of grasping root-fibres, lie in the 
water. The foliage and flowering stems, of which one 
springs up at every 5 or 6 inches of the rhizome, are 
upright, and even in this country may be 12 feet high. 
But at Niederlausitz bei Luckau, Frith records a speci- 
men 33 feet high.’ 
The harshly rustling leaves have a short flexible joint 
just where they join the sheath, and the plume of 
purplish white flowers is lifted high above the thicket. 
These close set battalions of Phragmites stems are the 
real land-formers, for the submerged main stem is always 
growing out into the water and so occupying more of 
the lake. : 
But two distinct processes are also at work. In the 
reed thicket there is a continual accumulation of dead 
leaves and stalks, of drifted silt from the lake, and also 
an enormous growth of alge and diatoms. Every 
season sees layers of fine mud and dead leaves deposited 
in the reed zone, which gradually becomes shallower, or 
rather fills up with half liquid mud. 
On the landward side of the reeds, marsh plants 
creep in between the Phragmites stems and here and 
there succeed in establishing themselves. The process 
varies almost with every particular loch, and the 
number of marsh plants which may be found in 
such a place is very great indeed. Perhaps the most 
striking are Lythrum salicaria, spearwort (Ranun- 
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