A swamp is a forested wetland. Swamps are considered to be transition zones because both land and water play a role in creating this environment. Swamps vary in size and are located all around the world. The water of a swamp may be fresh water, brackish water, or seawater. Freshwater swamps form along large rivers or lakes where they are critically dependent upon rainwater and seasonal flooding to maintain natural water level fluctuations. Saltwater swamps are found along tropical and subtropical coastlines. Some swamps have hammocks, or dry-land protrusions, covered by aquatic vegetation, or vegetation that tolerates periodic inundation or soil saturation. The two main types of swamp are "true" or swamp forests and "transitional" or shrub swamps. In the boreal regions of Canada, the word swamp is colloquially used for what is more formally termed a bog, fen, or muskeg. Some of the world's largest swamps are found along major rivers such as the Amazon, the Mississippi, and the Congo.
Aquatic plants are plants that have adapted to living in aquatic environments. They are also referred to as hydrophytes or macrophytes to distinguish them from algae and other microphytes. A macrophyte is a plant that grows in or near water and is either emergent, submergent, or floating. In lakes and rivers macrophytes provide cover for fish, substrate for aquatic invertebrates, produce oxygen, and act as food for some fish and wildlife.
A marsh is a wetland that is dominated by herbaceous rather than woody plant species. Marshes can often be found at the edges of lakes and streams, where they form a transition between the aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. They are often dominated by grasses, rushes or reeds. If woody plants are present they tend to be low-growing shrubs, and the marsh is sometimes called a carr. This form of vegetation is what differentiates marshes from other types of wetland such as swamps, which are dominated by trees, and mires, which are wetlands that have accumulated deposits of acidic peat.
An aquatic ecosystem is an ecosystem found in and around a body of water, in contrast to land-based terrestrial ecosystems. Aquatic ecosystems contain communities of organisms—aquatic life—that are dependent on each other and on their environment. The two main types of aquatic ecosystems are marine ecosystems and freshwater ecosystems. Freshwater ecosystems may be lentic ; lotic ; and wetlands.
Scirpus is a genus of grass-like species in the sedge family Cyperaceae many with the common names club-rush, wood club-rush or bulrush. They mostly inhabit wetlands and damp locations.
A hydrosere is a plant succession which occurs in an area of fresh water such as in oxbow lakes and kettle lakes. In time, an area of open freshwater will naturally dry out, ultimately becoming woodland. During this change, a range of different landtypes such as swamp and marsh will succeed each other.
Distichlis spicata is a species of grass known by several common names, including seashore saltgrass, inland saltgrass, and desert saltgrass. This grass is native to the Americas, where it is widespread. It can be found on other continents as well, where it is naturalized. It is extremely salt tolerant.
Phragmites australis, known as the common reed, is a species of flowering plant in the grass family Poaceae. It is a wetland grass that can grow up to 20 feet tall and has a cosmopolitan distribution worldwide.
Before drainage, the Everglades, a region of tropical wetlands in southern Florida, were an interwoven mesh of marshes and prairies covering 4,000 square miles (10,000 km2). The Everglades is both a vast watershed that has historically extended from Lake Okeechobee 100 miles (160 km) south to Florida Bay, and many interconnected ecosystems within a geographic boundary. It is such a unique meeting of water, land, and climate that the use of either singular or plural to refer to the Everglades is appropriate. When Marjory Stoneman Douglas wrote her definitive description of the region in 1947, she used the metaphor "River of Grass" to explain the blending of water and plant life.
Pontederia cordata, common name pickerelweed (USA) or pickerel weed (UK), is a monocotyledonous aquatic plant native to the American continents. It grows in a variety of wetlands, including pond and lake margins across an extremely large range from eastern Canada south to Argentina. A few examples include northern rivers, the Everglades and Louisiana.
Brackish marshes develop from salt marshes where a significant freshwater influx dilutes the seawater to brackish levels of salinity. This commonly happens upstream from salt marshes by estuaries of coastal rivers or near the mouths of coastal rivers with heavy freshwater discharges in the conditions of low tidal ranges.
Peltandra virginica is a plant of the arum family known as green arrow arum and tuckahoe. It is widely distributed in wetlands in the eastern United States, as well as in Quebec, Ontario, and Cuba. It is common in central Florida including the Everglades and along the Gulf Coast. Its rhizomes are tolerant to low oxygen levels found in wetland soils. It can be found elsewhere in North America as an introduced species and often an invasive plant.
A freshwater marsh is a non-tidal, non-forested marsh wetland that contains fresh water, and is continuously or frequently flooded. Freshwater marshes primarily consist of sedges, grasses, and emergent plants. Freshwater marshes are usually found near the mouths of rivers, along lakes, and are present in areas with low drainage like abandoned oxbow lakes. It is the counterpart to the salt marsh, an upper coastal intertidal zone of bio-habitat, which is regularly flushed with sea water.
Juncus roemerianus is a species of flowering plant in the rush family known by the common names black rush, needlerush, and black needlerush. It is native to North America, where its main distribution lies along the coastline of the southeastern United States, including the Gulf Coast. It occurs from New Jersey to Texas, with outlying populations in Connecticut, New York, Mexico, and certain Caribbean islands.
Panicum repens is a species of grass known by many common names, including torpedograss, creeping panic, panic rampant, couch panicum, wainaku grass, quack grass, dog-tooth grass, and bullet grass. Its exact native range is obscure. Sources suggest that the grass is native to "Africa and/or Asia", "Europe or Australia", "Eurasia", "Australia", "Europe, Asia, and Africa", or other specific regions, including the Mediterranean, Israel, and Argentina. It is present in many places as an introduced species and often a noxious weed. It has been called "one of the world's worst weeds."
Amphicarpum muehlenbergianum is a species of grass known by the common names blue maidencane, Muhlenberg maidencane, and goobergrass. It is native to the southeastern United States.
Zizaniopsis miliacea is a species of flowering plant in the grass family, Poaceae. It is known by the common names giant cutgrass, water millet, and southern wildrice. The name giant cutgrass refers to the plant's large, rough-edged leaves, and the name southern wildrice refers to its resemblance to wildrice. It is native to the southeastern United States and it can also be found in central Mexico.
The Floridian highlands freshwater marsh is a wetland community found on the Florida peninsula. These are upland marshes occurring in shallow peat-filled valleys, the basins of dried lakes, and the borders of existing lakes. The vegetation mosaic includes a range of mostly herbaceous plant communities, varying based on water depth. Deep water supports various submerged and floating plants. Approximately meter-deep supports emergent herbaceous perennials, typically in dense, monospecific stands; species include bulrush, pickerelweed, American lotus. Shallow areas only submerged during wet season support more graminoid vegetation, including maidencane and southern cutgrass. Subsurface subsidence and changing drainage patterns make these habitats shift and change over time. Soils can be mucky, loamy, or sandy, but they are generally above permeable subsoils that create standing water much of the year. These marshes may also be called meadows or prairies.
Leersia hexandra is a species of grass known by the common names southern cutgrass, clubhead cutgrass, and swamp rice grass. It has a pantropical distribution. It is also an introduced species in many regions, sometimes becoming invasive, and it is an agricultural weed of various crops, especially rice. It is also cultivated as a forage for livestock.
Pseudoraphis spinescens, called spiny mudgrass or Moira grass is a rhizomatous and stoloniferous aquatic or semi-aquatic perennial grass, with ascending stems forming loose, floating mats in water to 1 m deep or more, or with stems to 50 cm high when not submerged. Moira grass was first described in 1810 by Robert Brown as Panicum spinescens, and subsequently transferred to Pseudoraphis by Joyce W. Vickery in 1950.
