THE GAME BREEDER 



189 



WILD CELERY. 



By W. L. McAtee. 



VALUE AS DUCK FOOD. 



The names wild celery (Vallisneria 

 spiralis) and canvasback duck have been 

 closely associated in the annals of Ameri- 

 can sport. - To a certain extent this asso- 

 ciation is justified, since the canvasback 

 obtains about one-fourth of its food from 

 this plant — a greater proportion than any 

 other duck. However, the assertion that 

 the flavor of the canvasback is superior 

 to that of any other duck and that it de- 

 pends on a diet of wild celery is not 

 proved, to say the least. The scaups or 

 bluebills and the redhead also are very 

 fond of wild celery, and are fully as 

 capable of getting the delicious buds as 

 the canvasback. Several other ducks get 

 more Or less of this food, the writer find- 

 ing that even the scoters on a Wisconsin 

 lake in fall lived almost exclusively on 

 it for the time. All parts of the plant 

 are eaten by ducks, but the tender winter 

 buds (fig. 6) and rootstocks are relished 

 best. Wild celery buds can usually be ob- 

 tained only by the diving ducks, such as 

 the bluebills, redhead, canvasback, 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. 



Description of Plant. 



Wild celery (fig. 4) is a wholly sub- 

 merged plant with long, flexible, ribbon- 

 like leaves of light translucent green and 

 of practically the same 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 may 

 be somewhat serrate or wavy margined 

 there. But they are never expanded and 

 the venation is peculiar. A leaf held up to 

 the light displays numerous straight par- 

 allel fine veins running its whole length. 

 There are, besides, one median and two 

 lateral prominent veins connected at in- 

 tervals by irregular cross veinlets. (See 

 fig. 7.) Wild celery may be dis- 

 tinguished from eelgrass (Zoster a mar- 



ina), 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 

 opposite sides of the stem. Pipewort 

 (Eriocaulon), a fresh- water plant, often 

 having ribbon-like leaves', may be recog- 

 nized by the reticulation of the entire 

 leaf into small cells by veins of nearly 

 uniform size. 



In certain stages some of the arrow- 

 heads (Sagittaria) are difficult to tell 



Fig. 4. 



from wild celery, though they usually 

 have the end of the leaf expanded into 

 a proper leaf blade or else quite pointed, 

 neither of which characteristics is to be 

 found in Vallisneria. 



The flowers of wild celery, usually 

 seen in July, are peculiar. The stam- 

 inate flowers attached at the base of the 

 plants shed pollen, which floats on the 

 surface of the water and fertilizes the 

 pistillate flower. The latter is attached 

 to a long, slender, round stem, which 



