PLANTS ON LAKE ONALASKA

     American lotus, wild rice, arrowheads and purple loosestrife are decorative, interesting, aquatic plants that grow among tall grass along the shores of alluvial islands in Lake Onalaska, a large, backwater lake off the Mississippi River in Wisconsin.  And all that vegetation is most intriguing late in summer when they are in flower and go to seed.

     Each of these attractive plants forms clumps of themselves along the edges of Onalaska's islands.  And each vegetative species provides food and shelter for a variety of aquatic creatures.  

     American lotus are native, emergent plants that are rooted to the muddy bottoms of shallow water in ponds and lakes, here and there, across the eastern United States.  They have large, bowl-shaped leaves and fragrant, creamy-yellow flowers up to ten inches across during August and September.  Leaves and blooms poke only a few inches above the normal water level.  

     Pollinated lotus blossoms develop unique and decorative, shower-head-looking, brown seed pods.  A brown, acorn-like nut develops in each cavity; nuts a variety of puddle ducks eat, including mallards.  

     Native to the Great Lakes Area, wild rice is a tall, wild grass with seed heads near the top of each stalk.  This decorative plant species is an annual emergent in shallow water.  

     Native Americans in that area harvested wild rice late in summer by poling canoes into stands of it.  One person pushed each boat over shallow water while another person swished wild rice stalks over the canoe and knocked the seeds into that craft as it move forward slowly. 

     Several kinds of birds, including mixed, or pure, flocks of beautiful red-winged and yellow-headed blackbirds, stately Canada geese and handsome puddle ducks ingest wild rice seeds.  The blackbirds are light enough to perch on wild rice stalks as they consume the seeds.  Geese and ducks shovel fallen rice from the water and ground.  

     Native arrowheads have unique, broadly arrow-head-shaped leaves, and lovely, white flowers during August.  Also called duck potatoes, the tubers of this pretty, shoreline plant species feed muskrats and puddle ducks.  

     Purple loosestrife is a tall, perennial alien that appears to need moist ground, but not wet feet. This species produces many attractive, hot-pink flowers during August.  Those blooms attract a variety of bees, butterflies and other kinds of insects that sip their sugary nectar.  

     These lovely, beneficial plants are interesting in themselves, and in the wildlife they feed and shelter.  All plant communities are intriguing, and of value to some wild critters.    

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