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=o Marsh Hay 
Marsh hay is a term that covers a slender cordgrass, salt grass, and 
a few other species, a striking characteristic of which, after it has attain- 
ed a height growth, is a "lodged" appearance, as if some force had flattened 
it. A variety of other plants may be scattered about in this zone of the 
Salt marsh, and here more birds nest than elsewhere. Flowers that may at- 
tract attention are the marsh rosemary, with its delicate sprays of tiny 
lavender wlossoms, growing all the way along the coast; and sea ox-eye, with 
buttonlike heads, yellow in flower, purplish-brown in fruit, from Virginia 
southward. The seeds of some of the plants, such as those of salt grass and 
small sedges among the marsh hay, are sometimes saten, but with one exception 
they are not known to be of much value. The exception is SCS a plant 
with fleshy leaves at base and a slender stalk bearing three-parted green 
fruits, sometimes locally important as food for wild ducks. In some periods 
of our history salt-marsh hay has been of importance and was thriftily har- 
vested, but now it appears to be little used. 
A salt-marsh plant sure to attract attention is one with fleshy, 
watery-looking, jointed stems, which. srovms in places made so salt by re- 
peated flooding and evaporation that they are bare of other vegetation. This 
saltwort, picklegrass, or samphire, is pale sreen in summer, but turns scar- 
let in fall. Locally its seeds may be important as food for wild ducks, and 
the fleshy parts are said to be cropped by wild geese. 
Other Vegetation 
The zone of transition from marsh to woland vegetation contains such 
things as marso mallow with pink flowers some incnes across, the high-tide 
bush covered in fall with the glistening white parachute hairs of its seeds; 
Switch grass, the seets of which are a dird food; orach: and sesside golden- 
rod. The Leaves of n, arrowheed-liie, oa those of ths seaside golden+ 
rod, lance-shapec, also somewhat thickened, a.characteristi 
salt-tolerating plents siwhs: orach. may be ra by géese, or its seeds 
eaten by various birds, but the goldenrod is not known to be used. 
Salt marshes may at first glance seem monotonous, but they have a 
Variety and play of color not lost on the attentive observer. In summer the 
cordgzass is hight green, the mars: hay darxzer, and the blackgrass very Gark. 
In fall all fade to russct, and in winter to straw. The patches of samphire, 
4 
or picklegrass, soft grecn in summer, turn red or sven scarlet in fall. 
BIRDS: NOR CHARACTERISTIC SPECIES 
Ma salt maish may be divided into two 
itner Peeed in or closely fre 
Tne discussion of the birds of 
parts, tas first relating 1 i eqaent 
the usual saltemersh vageietion, and the second treating those kinds that 
Visit the marshes but do not breed. in them, unless it is in trees that are 
not really a part of the sait-marsh vegetation. This second suction includes 
also birds whose true breeding home is in inland wooded swamns or on bare 
