Plant Species Found in Pocket Wetland (snapshot of early spring)

Free floating plants: plants that float freely on the water surface

Duckweed (Lemna sp.)

• Native small floating plant

• Each duckweed frond has one root and it obtains all of its nutrition from the water

• These plants multiply by budding

• In the winter duckweed buds rest on sediment in the bottom of the wetland. In the spring air-spaces develop in the duckweed and they float to the surface. In the fall the duckweed produces new buds that aren’t buoyant and sink to the sediment and the whole cycle is repeated.

• Value in aquatic community: Important food source for ducks and beavers.

Emergent plants: plants with leaves that extend above the water surface

Common or Broad-leaved Cattail (Typha latifolia):

• Native perennial

• Leaves feel spongy because of aerenchyma—air-filled chambers that channel oxygen to the plant’s roots

• Sprouts from rhizomes during the fall, flowers by mid-summer, and the seeds disperse from the fall to the following spring

• Value in aquatic community: marsh birds (Redwing blackbirds) nest in cattails. Invertebrates, such as the caterpillar of the cattail moth, can also live and feed on cattails.