Wigeonszrass 
Wigeongrass has long threadlike leaves, arising from a whitish, rather 
gigzag rootstock. The small black triangular seeds are borne singly on the 
tips of short stalks radiating from the end of a more or less lengthy and 
spiral stem. Wigeongrass grows in varying depths of water, sometimes ina 
few inches near the shore, somctimes at a depth of 10 feet or more. It as 
typically an inhabitant of brackish water, but grows also in that which is 
nearly fresh and, at the other extreme, in lagoons concentrated by evapora- 
tion to a selinity greater than that of the sea. It is also adapted to 
strongly alkaline waters of the West, in which no other plants will grow. 
It is a wild-fowl food of the first rank, and all parts of it are eaten. 
Cordgrass, or thatcherass, occupies deeper water than any of the other 
salt-marsh plants, except the strictly submerged celgrass and wigeongrass, 
and makes up nine-tenths or more of all of the vegetation of its zone. This 
erass extends in depth from the level of ordinary high tide nearly to that of 
mean low tide. Consequently a considerable part of its total height is sub- 
merged at hich tide. Cordgrass is a true grass, not a "called" one like 
those just referred to. It has a rather stiff, leafy, stalk, as much as 10 
feet tall, o flowering and fruiting head composed of featherlike parts, and 
a wiry rootstock. Cordgrass is sometimes used for bedding or mulch. It has 
little food value for wildlife but makes good cover for rails and smaller 
birds, some of which nest in it, especially where bunches of dry eelgrass or 
other drift have lodged. 
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Blackgrass 
Arens inside the cordgrass zone that are not covered by ordinary high 
tides but are subject to flooding by spring and other exceptionally full 
tides, have a variety of vegetation, in which at different points blackgrass, 
bulrusnes, cattails, or marsh hay may predominate. Blackgrass, SO called 
from its very dark-esreen color, which is almost black in fall, slender and 
needle-vointed at the top, with a tuft of flowers or seeds at the side, makes 
large and dense stands, but asvertneless permits the growth of numerous other 
salt-marsh plants within its domain. It is of no value as a food plant. 
Bulrushes 
Bulrushes of the salt marsh have triangular stems and tufts of flowers 
or seeds near the top. In the so-called three square, without leafy stems, 
these tufts are lateral, and in the larger leafy-stemmed bvlrusnes they are 
terminal. From them can be ound out in the palm large numbers of shiny 
brown seeds. These ure eaten freely by waterfowl and in some localities 
are en important food supply. Bulrushes are a favorite food of muskrats and 
are used also as material for winter houses of these animals. 
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