A Guide to Moist-Soil Wetland Plants of the Mississippi Alluvial Valley

By Michael L. Schummer, Heath M. Hagy, K. Sarah Fleming and 2 more

Moist-soil wetlands are seasonally flooded areas that produce early-succession plant communities of grasses, sedges, and other herbaceous plants. Moist-soil wetland plants provide food and cover for a diversity of wildlife species, including waterfowl and other waterbirds. Thus, conservation and management of moist-soil plants has become a major component of wildlife conservation efforts in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley and elsewhere in North America. The authors combined their extensive experience working in managed and unmanaged wetlands from southern Missouri to southern Louisiana to produce this beautifully illustrated identification guide. A detailed, yet user friendly field guide to identify moist-soil plants of the Mississippi Alluvial Valley has not been available until now.

Management to encourage the growth of moist-soil plants is a common conservation strategy used by state, federal, and private landowners to increase food and cover for wildlife. Thus, landowners must be able to identify moist-soil plants to meet their wildlife conservation goals. Landowners, scientists, wildlife biologists, and students alike will welcome this useful resource which includes 600 detailed color photographs of plants, images of seeds and tubers, and other helpful information to aid in identification. The book includes subsections of major plant groups occurring in moist-soil wetlands including aquatics, grasses, broadleaves, sedges and rushes, trees and shrubs, vines, and agricultural crops.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
• Release date: Feb 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781628467093

Michael L. Schummer

Michael L. Schummer of Allegany, New York, is a scientist with Long Point Waterfowl, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the study and conservation of waterfowl and wetlands throughout the lower Great Lakes.

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A Guide to Moist-Soil Wetland Plants of the Mississippi Alluvial Valley

A Guide to Moist-Soil Wetland Plants of the Mississippi Alluvial Valley

Michael L. Schummer, Heath M. Hagy, K. Sarah Fleming, Josh C. Cheshier, and James T. Callicutt

www.upress.state.ms.us

Designed by Peter D. Halverson

The University Press of Mississippi is a member of the Association of American University Presses.

Photo credits: Michael L. Schummer, Heath M. Hagy, K. Sarah Fleming, Josh C. Cheshier, and James T. Callicutt

This book has been approved for publication as Mississippi State University Forest and Wildlife Research Center publication WFA308.

Proceeds from sales of this book support wetlands research conducted through the James C. Kennedy Endowed Chair in Waterfowl and Wetlands Conservation at Mississippi State University.

Publication of this work was supported by:

Gulf Coastal Plains & Ozarks Landscape Conservation Cooperative/

Lower Mississippi Valley Joint Venture Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks Mississippi State University College of Forest Resources

and Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Aquaculture Natural Resources Conservation Service Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation Texas Parks and Wildlife Department

Copyright © 2012 by University Press of Mississippi

All rights reserved

Printed in China by Everbest through Four Colour Imports, Ltd., Louisville, Kentucky

First printing 2012

∞

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A guide to moist-soil wetland plants of the Mississippi Alluvial Valley / Michael L. Schummer . . . [et al.].

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-61703-146-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-61703-147-2 (ebook)

1. Wetland plants—Mississippi River Valley—Identification.

I. Schummer, Michael L.

QK128.G85 2012

581.977—dc22     2011005635

British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

A Brief History of the Mississippi Alluvial Valley and Moist-Soil Wetlands

How to Use This Book

AQUATICS

BROADLEAVES

GRASSES

SEDGES AND RUSHES

VINES

TREES AND SHRUBS

CULTIVATED PLANTS

References

Appendix 1: Moist-Soil Wetland Management Literature

Appendix 2: List of Taxonomic Information

Index

Preface

In the late 1930s, Frank Bellrose coined the term moist-soil to describe vegetation that grows along exposed mudflats within the Illinois River Valley. Other wildlife researchers such as Leigh Fredrickson, Mickey Heitmeyer, and Scott Taylor of the University of Missouri; Loren Smith of Texas Tech University; and Rick Kaminski of Mississippi State University pioneered moist-soil research. Their research expanded Bellrose’s observations into a staple of habitat management for waterfowl and other wildlife in North America.

Moist-soil wetlands are defined as seasonally flooded areas that produce early-succession plant communities dominated by grasses, sedges, and other herbaceous plants. Without periodic disturbance from river flooding and scouring, moist-soil habitats often need to be managed to maintain annual vegetation that provides cover and abundant food resources for wildlife. Periodic soil disturbance and water management (e.g., an annual drawdown of water to create mudflats in spring and summer) is critical for producing early-succession plant communities. The drawdown date, rate, and duration influence vegetation composition, diversity, propagule (e.g., seed and tuber) production, and subsequent wildlife responses. Management of moist-soil plants for wildlife, especially waterfowl and other waterbirds, has become a major component of conservation efforts in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley and elsewhere in North America.

The plant community in moist-soil wetlands influences the quality of habitat for waterfowl and other wetland wildlife. Thus, state, federal, and private landowners must be able to identify moist-soil plants and propagules to meet their conservation goals. As wildlife researchers, we recognized the need for a simple field guide to the common moist-soil wetland plants of the Mississippi Alluvial Valley.

Three main considerations guided our efforts while compiling this text. First, we wanted this field guide to common moist-soil plants of the Mississippi Alluvial Valley to be useful to wildlife professionals, land managers, and wildlife students. We divided the book into easily recognizable plant life forms, including aquatics, broadleaves, grasses, sedges and rushes, and vines. We also included a section on trees and shrubs because they are sometimes planted by land managers or occur naturally in moist-soil wetlands and on Wetlands Reserve Program lands. Because land managers often plant crops, such as corn, within moist-soil wetlands as supplemental food for wildlife, we also included a section on common cultivated plants that may be found in moist-soil habitats of the Mississippi Alluvial Valley. Second, we sought to produce a field guide that did not depend on detailed botanical terminology but featured pictures and habitat descriptions useful to a broad audience. Third, we wanted to provide easily discernable morphological characteristics within the species descriptions to aid in the identification of plants by a wide range of users.

The main focus of the management of moist-soil wetlands has been the production of foraging habitat for waterfowl. However, conservation goals of stakeholders can differ. Therefore, we felt uncomfortable making judgments on desirable and undesirable plants, as well as prescribing specific management recommendations. Instead, in Appendix 1 we include a list of suggested readings that describe specific conservation practices and management of moist-soil wetlands for a variety of wildlife species.

We hope this field guide to the common moist-soil wetland plants of the Mississippi Alluvial Valley will become a tool enabling wildlife managers to better meet their conservation goals. Although we consulted with moist-soil experts and plant taxonomists, this book should not be used to direct management activities or serve as an absolute guide for plant identification. We list other texts and taxonomic keys in the References and Appendix 1 that should help guide management decisions.

Acknowledgments

Many people contributed to the completion of this book by allowing land access and offering technical advice, including Philip Barbour, Charles Bryson, Mike Chouinard, John Englert, Gary Ervin, Wayne Gordon, Ralph Griffin, Ed Hackett, Jerry Hazelwood, Henry Heafner, Pete Heard, George Hopper, Jeanne Jones, Rick Kaminski, James Kennedy, Bruce Leopold, Lake Lewis, David Linden, Landon Loveall, Victor Maddox, Nancy McGee, Joseph McGowan, Rance Moring, Kevin Nelms, David Richardson, Rebecca Rosamond, Bo Sloan, Jacob Tuttle, Brett Werhle, Carl Wirwa, and several Wetlands Reserve Program landowners in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley.

Victor Maddox provided expertise on plant identification. We thank Jeanne Jones for sharing her passion of the flora of the southeastern United States. We are extremely grateful for early reviews of the book provided by Mac H. Alford, Charles Bryson, and Norman Melvin. We also wish to extend our deepest gratitude to Rick Kaminski for all his support and guidance during our tenures at Mississippi State University. Such an ambitious project would not have been possible without his support. Bruce Leopold provided substantial support and stalwart guidance throughout the development of this book.

Some plant photos in this book were collected at Wetland Reserve Program sites that were being used to develop technology for the Natural Resources Conservation Service Agricultural Wildlife Conservation Center. The project, entitled: Evaluating actively and passively managed moist-soil wetlands enrolled in the Wetland Reserve Program in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley, was Cooperative Ecosystem Study Unit Agreement Number 68-7482-9-500.

A Guide to Moist-Soil Wetland Plants of the Mississippi Alluvial Valley

A Brief History of the Mississippi Alluvial Valley and Moist-Soil Wetlands

The Mississippi River is the fifth largest river in the world, with its river basin encompassing 30 states in the United States and the province of Saskatchewan in Canada. In the northeast, the river drainage begins at the foothills of the Alleghany Mountains of western New York and Pennsylvania. Far to the west, glaciers of the Rocky Mountains of Montana melt into streams that slowly become the Missouri River, a major tributary of the Mississippi. Water from over 1.2 million square miles eventually drains through the 120-mile-wide flat land of the Mississippi Alluvial Valley.

The Mississippi Alluvial Valley starts just south of Cape Girardeau, Missouri, where the steep bluffs that follow the river for hundreds of miles along its western edge quickly disappear into the flat lands of the alluvial valley. From southeastern Missouri to the Gulf of Mexico the ancient Mississippi River flooded regularly, spreading nutrient-rich sand, silt, and clay across the Mississippi Alluvial Valley. These periodic floods created and regularly rejuvenated a lush landscape of bottomland hardwoods, oxbows, and intermittent forest openings. Early records are scarce, but regular scouring of the Mississippi Alluvial Valley by rivers, periodic shifts in river channels, and floods that left permanent water for extended periods likely created openings in the bottomland hardwood forest, allowing the growth of shade-intolerant native shrubs, grasses, sedges, and aquatic plants. These forest openings provided a unique habitat in an otherwise vast expanse of towering hardwoods, tupelo breaks, and massive bald cypress trees.

Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, construction of levees along the Mississippi River and its major tributaries allowed for the expansion of agriculture throughout the Mississippi Alluvial Valley. The clearing of forests, draining of swamps, and building of levees were standard practices for the economic development of agricultural areas. The Army Corps of Engineers adopted a levees-only policy to reduce flooding, stabilize the Mississippi River channel, and increase downstream velocity. It was thought that earthen levees could deepen the river channel and allow self-dredging and maintenance, thereby providing perpetual flood control. Rich bottomland soils were farmed without fear of loss of crops to floods, and plantation life flourished.

On March 12, 1927, however, a crevasse that would eventually produce a 100-foot-deep scour hole adjacent to the levee opened at Mounds Landing, Mississippi. The crevasse poured waters throughout the Mississippi side of the alluvial valley, eventually submerging houses 75 miles away from the river. Levees broke at 145 locations. The flood covered 27,000 square miles, nearly the entire Mississippi Alluvial Valley, including large portions of the Arkansas, Red, and White River Basins. The Mississippi River reached a maximum width of 60 miles, and an estimated 700,000 people were displaced from their homes. Waters did not recede until August 1927, and damage estimates topped $400 million.

The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 resulted in a new engineering approach to the Mississippi River, and for the first time the federal government assumed control of regional flood control efforts. The Flood Control Act of 1928 authorized the Army Corps of Engineers to implement a full-scale evaluation of flood control programs throughout the Mississippi Alluvial Valley. Ultimately, this legislation resulted in the Mississippi River and Tributaries Project and the end of the levees-only era. River engineering now included the creation of upstream reservoirs, floodways, outlet channels, channel stabilization, and other basin-wide engineering that facilitated river transportation, greatly reduced the potential effects of flooding, and secured the economic development of the Mississippi Alluvial Valley. Reservoirs were built throughout the Mississippi River Basin to help regulate the seasonal flow of the river. Levees were built larger and stronger, and floodways and outlet channels were developed using the latest engineering methodology. The ancient Mississippi River was gone. To date, 3700 miles of levees have been built in the Mississippi Basin, breaking the critical link between the river’s nutrient-filled floods and the surrounding hardwood forests.

The Mississippi Alluvial Valley is one of the most productive agricultural areas of the world, and aggressive engineering of the Mississippi River is the single largest