Partly cloudy and cool, 46 degrees
As I walked along the causeway out to Iona Island, I was reminded of the invasive character and persistence of the aquatic plant Phragmites. Along the road out to the island, phragmites is by far the dominant plant in what was originally cattail habitat. Why should we be concerned? Common Reed as it is commonly referred to displaces native species, reduces biodiversity, offers little value for wildlife and chokes waterways. Once established, it will choke out other more beneficial plants and unlike cattails basically provides little in the way of food or shelter for wildlife.
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| Phragmites |
Take a piece of phragmites and break it in half. What you see is what you get. Called “nature’s Styrofoam”, the plant looks and acts like the synthetic plastic material mentioned here. When phragmites plants die, they take years to decay. Cattails which are replaced by the phrags will decay into rich fertile soil on the other hand. Common Reed is a highly competitive plant that is capable of rapid growth and spreads quickly. Its network of roots and stems traps sediment and retards the flow of water and nutrients through the system. The advance of phragmites has been coorelated to the decrease of certain birds using the marsh, specifically marsh wrens, bitterns, and green herons.
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| Cattails at Iona Island |
Here at Iona Island, an attempt is being made to eradicate the invasive phragmites and replace it with native plants. Herbicides were used to kill 10 acres of the plant. Simply cutting the plant down does nothing to stop the growth as the plant sends out rhizomes and will simply grow back the following year. Hopefully, the project will prove successful and more work can proceed in the near future.
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