10 
BULLETIN 465, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
for the time. All parts of the plant are eaten by ducks, but the 
tender winter buds (fig. 8) and rootstocks are relished most. Wild 
celery buds can usually be obtained only by the diving ducks, as the 
bluebills, redhead, canvas-back, 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. Wild fowl not thus 
far specifically mentioned which also feed upon wild celery include 
the wood ducks, pintail, ruddy duck, buffle-head, whistler, green- 
w i n-g e d and b 1 u e- 
winged teals, greater 
and lesser scaups or 
bluebills, white-winged 
and surf scoters, and 
whistling swan. 
DESCRIPTION OF PLANT. 
Wild celery (fig. 4) 
is a wholly submerged 
plant with long, flexi- 
ble, ribbonlike leaves of 
light translucent green 
and of practically uni- 
form 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 some- 
what serrate or wavy- 
margined there, -but 
thev are never ex- 
FlG . 4.— Wild celery. (Reduced. From Reichenbach.) pan( j ec | an( j t ] ie yena _ 
tion is peculiar. A leaf held up to the light displays numerous fine 
straight parallel veins running the whole length. There are, besides. 
one median and two lateral prominent veins connected at intervals 
by irregular cross veinlets (see fig. 5). Wild celery may be dis- 
tinguished from eelgrass (Zostera marina), 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 oppo- 
site sides of the stem. The leaves of wild celery generally are more 
than a fourth of an inch wide, while those of eelgrass are about that 
width or narrower. Pipewort (Eriocaulori) , a fresh-water plant, 
