6.
feel hungry the plants provide a useful snack
with their own built in salt supply. Also
in the muddier parts of the marsh we found
the Sea Aster (Aster tripolium). This plant
looks rather like a Michaelmas Daisy when in
flower, but a new form without the blue
petals seems to be replacing the one with
the typical flowers.
One plant which we found throughout the
salt marsh is the annual Sea Blite. (Suaeda
maritima). This is another succulent plant
but unlike the Glasswort it has succulent
leaves projecting well away from the stems.
The turf of the wetter parts of the
marsh is made of the Common Salt Marsh Grass
(Puccinellia maritima). The inflorescence
is usually more or less
erect, unlike the inflores-
cence of the Reflexed Salt
Marsh Grass (Puccinellia
distans) which we did not
find. The branches of
this inflorescence are
bare up to half their
length and they eventually
bend downwards in the way
which gives the plant its
name. Here and there, in
the marshes we examined,
were a few Cord Grass
plants (Spartina sp.) .
These are commoner in very
muddy saltmarshes. The
Common Cord Grass (Spartina
anglica) has longer anthers
and longer ligular hairs
than the other Cord Grasses.
It is an example of evolution
in action and is thought to