Seasides and Strand Plants 
a lodgment, the land will probably be enclosed and form 
part of the ordinary farm lands. 
The conditions vary greatly along such an estuary, for 
sometimes the sea is encroaching, and near freshwater 
streams comparatively deep water may be found close 
inshore. There are a whole series of plants which are 
adapted to these varying conditions. There are estuarine 
reed-beds of Scirpus Tabernzmontani which act like 
Phragmites (see p. 130) But its stems are firmly 
fastened down by strong anchoring roots. In such a 
reed-bed one may count forty to fifty upright stalks in a 
square foot of surface, so that they will efficiently strain 
out of the water floating rubbish of every description. 
Such a bed may advance about 9 inches seawards 
in a year, and is attacked on the land side by Armeria, 
Aster, scurvygrass, as well as by Vaucheria, Ectocarpus, 
and other Algze. So it changes into an Armeria flat or 
directly into a grass meadow. 
On the La Plata river one finds quite similar arrange- 
ments for colonisation by Scirpus montevidensis, which 
grows in I or 2 feet of water, and in shallower 
water Eleocharis bonariensis forms a close, grass-like 
sward which is colonised by a Hydrocotyle and Spilanthes 
stolonifera. 
In South America, also, seashore mud is sometimes 
artificially reclaimed by means of a grass, Spartina 
brasiliensis, which is planted out in rows at depths of 
1 foot below the surface.’ 
Lord Montagu de Beaulieu has stated that many 
acres of the mud in Southampton Water has been 
naturally reclaimed by the British species of Spartina ; 
but, so far as the author knows, no attempt has been 
made at plantation in this country. Such estuaries 
form, however, but a small part of the coast-line. The 
great stretches of shingle which are for ever travelling 
163 
