Paul’s Pond: 7
Mequon Nature Preserve Field Guide
thickets. Geese and muskrats dine on the rhizomes and stems.
Paul’s Pond disappears after a long, dry spell.
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Ponds and their wetlands were prized by the Native Americans who lived here. Food, medicines, fibers for twine and nets, dyes, and construction materials came from wetlands. Cattails were especially important to them. The leaves were woven into mats, and some part of the cattail plant is edible at any time of year. Red-winged Blackbirds, muskrats, fish, turtles, insects, and other invertebrates feed and shelter in the leaves, stems, fruits, and rhizomes of cattails, and the community is enriched by the droppings of the blackbirds that roost there.
The seeds of bulrushes are important wildlife food.
The stems of floating-leaved plants like water lilies reach from the pond floor to the water’s surface. Air chambers in the stems reduce the weight of the stem and buoy it up so the leaves and flowers don’t get dragged under the water. At the time of this writing, there are no water lilies in Mequon Nature Preserve ponds or wetlands, but one of their seeds could arrive any time. Like cattails, water lilies are beautiful in small numbers, but they can choke and shade a wetland in large numbers.
Red-winged Blackbirds make their nests in cattails.
Like cattails, bulrushes occur in colonies in shallow water, where they are important soilbuilders. Their seeds, borne in a loose cluster of fruits, are spread by the wind, but the colony expands through growth of the rhizomes. Their stems are divided into many air chambers for strength. Geese, ducks, and other wetland birds eat the “nutlets” of bulrush and nest in its
The long stems of water lilies are full of air pockets.
Duckweed looks like tiny, oval leaves, floating on a pond’s surface. Its short rootlets dangle below the leaf, but the plants are not anchored to the