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On 8/27/2010 5:08 PM, Dusan Soudek wrote (off the list):
> I am curious about your work on the distribution of the native and the
> Old World clones of /Phragmites /in Nova Scotia and elsewhere.
> I am finding more and more Common Reed
> populations in the province, principally along highways.
> Can you tell the two taxa apart in the field? Or do you need to analyse
> their DNA?
* I'll take the liberty of replying to the list, since this is the core
of what we'll be looking for in Nova Scotia. You can see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phragmites#Invasive_reeds for a very tepid
account of the status and distribution of native and invasive
"subspecies" of Phragmites, and
http://www.ou.edu/cas/botany-micro/ben/ben417.html for the database and
http://www.ou.edu/cas/botany-micro/ben/ben418.html for a compact summary
of the Canadian distribution. In places it seems that the native form,
as well as the European "subspecies" invader, is increasing along roads,
so the observed increase may not be a simple case of alien invasion. The
two kinds were described as subspecies, but there's no widespread, or
even documented, interbreeding between them, so they may be good
biological species.
Basically, if you examine the base of the stems, the native subspecies
has smooth red or reddish stems, and the invasives have finely ridged
yellow or greeen stems. Also the invasives are much more likely to be
more than 3m tall. The stands of the natives are more open, with other
species of plants often growing admixed, while the invasives form dense
monospecific stands. Paul Catling has shown that the flower and seed
parts of the natives are larger than those of the invasives, giving the
invasive seed head a puffy or plumed look.
Last December we drove through the Saint John Valley and SE coast of new
Brunswick, and only saw the native form along the roads, and so far have
seen only native-looking stands in Nova Scotia, so perhaps it would be
possible to prevent, in the maritime provinces, the kind of takeover
that has given Phragmites australis ssp. australis its alternative
English name: "The Grass that Ate New Jersey," and has led to its total
and complete dominance of so many salt marshes in the Atlantic states.
We'd be very glad to hear of the location of suspected native or
invasive stands, and as soon as we have better internet connections
we're going to put up a page for reporting the location of Phragmites
stands, which we'll communicate to Paul Catling's national registry of
such stands.
fred schueler.
------------------------------------------------------------
Frederick W. Schueler & Aleta Karstad
Bishops Mills Natural History Centre - http://pinicola.ca/bmnhc.htm
Thirty Years Later Expedition -
http://fragileinheritance.org/projects/thirty/thirtyintro.htm
Longterm ecological monitoring - http://fragileinheritance.org/
Daily Paintings - http://karstaddailypaintings.blogspot.com/
http://www.doingnaturalhistory.com/
http://quietcuratorialtime.blogspot.com/
RR#2 Bishops Mills, Ontario, Canada K0G 1T0
on the Smiths Falls Limestone Plain 44* 52'N 75* 42'W
(613)258-3107 <bckcdb at istar.ca> http://pinicola.ca/
------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------
Regards,
> Dusan Soudek
> /Part of this will be the distribution of native and invasive
> colonies of the Reed Phragmites, to see how widespread the invasives
> are, and in the hope of suppressing them before they totally take over
> salt marshes as they have in such places as New Jersey, and the
> roadsides as they have in Ontario and southern Quebec.
>
> fred schueler.
> /
> //
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