Comments
provided by eFloras
For differences between this highly polymorphic species and the similar but less variable Sparganium androcladum, see the discussion under that species. Also see the discussion under S. emersum.
E. O. Beal (1977) recognized three morphologically overlapping races of Sparganium americanum: the coastal race, growing in the lower coastal plain from Virginia to Florida and Louisiana, and north in the Mississippi Embayment to Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Missouri, has leaves wide for the species, rachises 2--5-branched, and stigmas 1.5+ mm long; the Appalachian race, growing in the Appalachian region from Maine to western North Carolina and in the Ozark Mountains, has leaves narrow for the species, rachises simple to sparingly branched, and stigmas 0.9 mm or less; and the ubiquitous race, growing throughout the range of the species with increasing robustness southward, morphologically overlaps the others.
- license
- cc-by-nc-sa-3.0
- copyright
- Missouri Botanical Garden, 4344 Shaw Boulevard, St. Louis, MO, 63110 USA
Description
provided by eFloras
Plants slender and grasslike to usually robust, to 1 m; leaves and inflorescences usually emergent. Leaves erect but not especially stiff, usually keeled only near base, flattened distally, to 1 m 6--12 mm. Inflorescences: rachis 0--3-branched, erect; bracts somewhat ascending, not basally inflated; pistillate heads 1--3 on branches, 2--6 on main rachis, axillary, not contiguous at anthesis, sessile, 1.5--2.5 cm diam. and often contiguous in fruit; staminate heads usually 3--7 on each branch, 4--10 on main rachis, not or barely contiguous. Flowers: tepals often with prominent subapical dark spot, entire to crenulate or emarginate; stigma 1, linear-lanceolate. Fruits tan to dark greenish brown, dull, subsessile to stipitate, fusiform, sometimes barely constricted near equator, body not strongly faceted, 3.5--5(--7) mm, tapering to beak; beak usually curved, not hooked, 3--5 mm; tepals attached at base, reaching equator or slightly beyond. Seeds 1.
- license
- cc-by-nc-sa-3.0
- copyright
- Missouri Botanical Garden, 4344 Shaw Boulevard, St. Louis, MO, 63110 USA
Distribution
provided by eFloras
St. Pierre and Miquelon; Man., N.B., Nfld. and Labr. (Nfld.), N.S., Ont., P.E.I., Que.; Ala., Ark., Conn., Del., Fla., Ga., Ill., Ind., Iowa, Kans., Ky., La., Maine, Md., Mass., Mich., Minn., Miss., Mo., N.H., N.J., N.Y., N.C., Ohio, Okla., Pa., R.I., S.C., Tenn., Tex., Vt., Va., W.Va., Wis.; Mexico (Durango).
- license
- cc-by-nc-sa-3.0
- copyright
- Missouri Botanical Garden, 4344 Shaw Boulevard, St. Louis, MO, 63110 USA
Flowering/Fruiting
provided by eFloras
Flowering late spring--summer (Apr--Jun southwestward, May--Sep southeastward, Jun--Aug northward).
- license
- cc-by-nc-sa-3.0
- copyright
- Missouri Botanical Garden, 4344 Shaw Boulevard, St. Louis, MO, 63110 USA
Habitat
provided by eFloras
Shores and shallow neutral-to-alkaline waters, sometimes forming large stands; 0--800m.
- license
- cc-by-nc-sa-3.0
- copyright
- Missouri Botanical Garden, 4344 Shaw Boulevard, St. Louis, MO, 63110 USA
Comprehensive Description
provided by North American Flora
Sparganium americanum Nutt. Gen. 2 : 203. 1818
Sparganium simplex Wood, Class Book ed. 2. 523. 1847. Not S. simplex Huds. 1778.
Sparganium simplex Nuttallii Bngelm.; A. Gray, Man. ed. 5. 481. 1867.
Sparganium angustifolium Graebner, in Bugler, Pflanzenreich 4™ : 16, in part. 1900. Not 6.
angustifolium Michx. 1803. Sparganium americanum Nuttallii Graebner, loc. cit. as a synonym. 1900. Sparganium Nuttallii Engelm.; Graebner, loc. cit. as a synonym. 1900. Sparganium simplex americanum Farwell, Ann. Rep. Mich. Acad. Sci. 6 : 202. 1904.
Perennial, with a rootstock and numerous roots at the base of the stem ; stem stout, 3-7 dm. high ; leaves deep-green, carinate, 3-10 dm. long, 6-12 mm. wide, more or less scarious-margined below ; lower bracts similar, but shorter, ascending, more or less dilated and scarious-margined below ; inflorescence usually simple, all heads sessile or the lower pistillate' ones pedicelled, axillary, the latter sometimes on strict (not geniculate) branches bearing 1-2 staminate heads above ; staminate heads at the end of the stem 3-10 ; fruiting heads 2-2.5 cm. in diameter ; blades of the sepals cuneate-obovate, erose at the apex, gradually tapering into the broad claws; body of the achenes fusiform, brown, dull, 5-6 mm. long, 2-3 mm. thick; stipe 2-3 mm. long; beak 2-3 mm.; stigma oblong.seldom over 1 mm. long; anthers oblong, about 1 mm. long and one fourth as wide.
Type locality : Vicinity of Philadelphia.
Distribution : Bogs and muddy shores, from Nova Scotia to South Carolina, Indian Territory,
- bibliographic citation
- Percy Wilson, Per Axel Rydberg, Norman Taylor, Nathaniel Lord Britton, John Kunkel Small, George Valentine Nash. 1909. PANDANALES-POALES; TYPHACEAE, SPARGANACEAE, ELODEACEAE, HYDROCHARITACEAE, ZANNICHELLIACEAE, ZOSTERACEAE, CYMODOCEACEAE, NAIADACEAE, LILAEACEAE, SCHEUCHZERIACEAE, ALISMACEAE, BUTOMACEAE, POACEAE (pars). North American flora. vol 17(1). New York Botanical Garden, New York, NY
Sparganium americanum
provided by wikipedia EN
Sparganium americanum, American bur-reed, is a perennial plant found in the United States of America and Canada.[1] Though this species resembles a grass, it is a type of bur-reed.[2] This species is important for conservation purposes because it has the ability to remove nitrogen and phosphorus runoff from water, like many other wetland species. By doing this it protects waterways from excess nitrogen which can cause eutrophication. This increased nitrogen is especially a problem during the farmers’ growing season. During this same time frame the S. americanum is growing and taking up nitrogen.[3]
Distribution
Sparganium americanum is located in marshes. American bur-reed grows from spring to fall in low marsh and shallow water (from 0 to 12 inches of water).[2] Sparganium americanum is located in the United States of America and Canada. In the United States, American bur-reed is found in Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Washington DC, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, North Dakota, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Vermont, Wisconsin, and West Virginia. In Canada American bur-reed can be found in Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward, and Quebec.[1]
Habitat and ecology
Sparganium americanum is a perennial plant.[1] American bur-reed grow in low marsh and shallow water, surviving in water up to 12 inches deep. This species helps stabilize muddy areas. Waterfowl and other animals feed on the seeds of S. americanum and some animals also eat their leaves.[2] Sparganium americanum live in peaty to sandy soils along lakeshores, slow moving streams and as floating vegetation in boggy lakes.[4] In a paper by the State University of New York at Binghamton, scientists showed that S. americanum accrued more aboveground biomass and lower belowground biomass than the other four wetland plant species the study looked at. The study looked at Sparganium americanum, Phalaris arundinacea, Scirpus cyperinus, Juncus effusus, and Calamagrostis canadensis. The study also showed that S. americanum had the highest concentration of nitrogen and phosphorus in aboveground tissue compared to the other species in the study. Even though S. americanum accumulated the most aboveground nitrogen and phosphorus, this species lost so much phosphorus that its net retention dropped below that of other species in the study. In the short run American bur-reed is helpful in retaining nutrients from agricultural runoff.[3]
Waterfowl and marsh birds eat the seeds, and muskrats eat from the entire plant.[5]
Morphology
Sparganium americanum is a monocot plant.[1] Individuals of this species may look like grass, but they aren’t. Individual American bur-reeds can grow to be between two and four feet. American bur-reed plants flower during the summer.[2] The leaves are green and are triangular in cross section; the leaves of individuals living in deeper water can produce floating leaves.[4]
Flowers and fruit
Sparganium americanum spread rapidly through their underground root systems of rhizomes. American bur-reed does flower in the summer time.[2] The inflorescence of S. americanum can be branched or simple. The fruits of this plant species have a dull surface with beaks that are between 2 and 5 millimeters long. These beaks may be straight, but some of them may be curved. The flower tepals could have a dark spot on them.[4]
References
-
^ a b c d http://plants.usda.gov/core/profile?symbol=SPAM Sparganium americanum Nutt. American bur-reed, United States Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service
-
^ a b c d e http://www.aquascapesunlimited.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=plants.plantDetail&plant_id=102&typeID=2 Sparganium americanum. Aquascapes Unlimited Inc.
-
^ a b Kao, Jenny T., John E. Titus, and Wei-Xing Zhu. 2003. Differential Nitrogen and Phosphorus Retention by Five Wetland Plant Species. Wetlands Vol. 23, No. 4: 979-987. DOI 10.1672/0277-5212(2003)023[0979:DNAPRB]2.0.CO;2. Accessed 4/30/14.
-
^ a b c Sulman, Josh. 2013. Sparganium identification key and species descriptions. University of Wisconsin-Madison, Department of Botany. Accessed 4/30/14 at http://botany.wisc.edu/jsulman/Sparganium%20identification%20key%20and%20description.htm
-
^ Niering, William A.; Olmstead, Nancy C. (1985) [1979]. The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Wildflowers, Eastern Region. Knopf. p. 808. ISBN 0-394-50432-1.
- license
- cc-by-sa-3.0
- copyright
- Wikipedia authors and editors
Sparganium americanum: Brief Summary
provided by wikipedia EN
Sparganium americanum, American bur-reed, is a perennial plant found in the United States of America and Canada. Though this species resembles a grass, it is a type of bur-reed. This species is important for conservation purposes because it has the ability to remove nitrogen and phosphorus runoff from water, like many other wetland species. By doing this it protects waterways from excess nitrogen which can cause eutrophication. This increased nitrogen is especially a problem during the farmers’ growing season. During this same time frame the S. americanum is growing and taking up nitrogen.
- license
- cc-by-sa-3.0
- copyright
- Wikipedia authors and editors