Common Reeds Grace the Wintertime Beach

These reeds, with their feathery tops are common all along the shoreline. From another blog (Quincy Daily Post) I found out that this perennial grass is called Phragmites. Phragmites australis, called "the common reed," is a grass ubiquitous along the shore and in wetlands actually around the world. There is interesting detail about a European species that successfully competed with our domestic species in the USA and now covers New England. A mention of the scientific paper in which the genetics of these reeds in New England (K. Saltonstall, Yale, 2002) was uncovered is noted in the website www.invasiveplants.net/phragmites/natint.htm. The plants are invasive crowding out other wetland plants. The health of some wetlands has been evaluated by measuring the success of these reeds in an area although the usual causes of decline of a population of plants, urbanization, pollution etc., seems to hinder growth in the USA and stimulate growth in Europe. Information now coming in from scientists seems to support the rational that the invasive qualities of the plants parallel the replacement of the native American species with the European variety.

These reeds are very tall. So tall in places, where the shoreline is very close to a roadway, they form a natural thatched wall blocking the shoreline view. In the winter their presence gives shape and variation to the landscape.