growth following the clipping, one quadrat showed a diminished 
number of cums tend the other no difference in comparison with 
the controls. 
Reed is often a pioneer plant (Warren S. Bourn, verbal 
communication), but once established, it may persist indefinitely 
and is resistant to control, especially when growing in water 
(Martin et al., 1957). Reed crossed by Transect C was burned in 
the fall of 1955. The reed type was unharmed by the fire, but 
the reed growing on either side of the buggy trail, at a slightly 
higher elevation and with a denser understory of saltmeadow cord- 
grass, was nearly eliminated. Apparently the ability of the 
nutria or other factors to damage reed depends upon deviations 
from rather precise environmental conditions. 
On the other hand, reports have indicated rather clearly that 
small stands of reed fringing bayous and ponds in the marsh have 
been destroyed by nutria. Nutria have destroyed small stands of 
ee in Germany and Poland (cited by Ehrlich, 1957), Israel 
(Glazner, 1958), England (cited by Laurie, 1946), and Russia 
(Vereshchagin, 1941). 
Aside from the protection it affords, reed has little value 
to waterfowl and muskrats and is considered a pest plant in duck 
marshes (Martin et al., 1957). However, it is commonly used to 
build duck blinds in the Louisiana marshes, 
Mature sawgrass did not appear to provide a good habitat for 
nutria. The number of sawgrass culms cut by nutria on Transect D 
25 
