CHAPTER 3 MARSHES:

PERIPHYTON,
VEGETATION, &
PLANTS

By: Annie Goyanes & Skylar Stinson

THE WETLANDS
• Variety of vegetation:
• aquatic macrophytes
• submersed plants
• emersed plants https://joshuacross.com/florida-wetlands-guide/

• free floating and floating leaved plants

• Role in the wetlands:

• Habitat and food source for wildlife
• Increase water clarity
• Affect nutrient cycles
https://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/articles/entry/SC_ruling_in_florida_wetlands_c
• Reduce shoreline erosion ase_not_quite_the_win_developers_claim/
 PERIPHYTON
• Algae dominant producer at the base of the food web
• Complex assemblage of algae, cyanobacteria,
microinvertebrates, and detritus attached to submerged
https://www.sciencephoto.com/media/16300/view/periphyton-algae-periphyton-sp-

plant stems and leaves

• Algal mat: periphyton grows on the soil surface or over
floating rafts of bladderwort.
• Main nutrient sources for Everglades grazers like
crayfish and snails

https://www.nationalparkstraveler.org/potw/mangrove-and-periphyton-everglades-national-park
PERIPHYTON
• Thrive in sunlit conditions like:
• Sparse sawgrass
• Wet prairies
• Sloughs with floating vegetation
• And low nutrient waters

• Provides dissolved oxygen through photosynthesis to sustain

aquatic life
• Exchange relationship with Phosphorous

http://frcsa.org.za/monitoring-management/periphyton/
 TYPES OF MARSHES:
• Characteristics:
• Salt marshes
• Freshwater marshes (vernal pools, prairie potholes) • Dominated by
herbaceous plants
• Everglades
•  Soils are flooded at
• Slough
least part of the
• Sawgrass ridges year
• Wet prairie
• Fire is a natural
disturbance 
 SALT MARSHES
• Characteristics:
• daily tidal flooding 
• support dense stands of adapted salt-tolerant plants
https://traveltips.usatoday.com/animals-salt-water-marshes-florida-63084.html • Vegetation lies within the marsh between the low and high
tidal zones.

• Habitat for majority of FL's commercial and recreational

fish
• Protect coastline by acting as natural filters against storm
surge and coastal flooding

https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2019/05/salt-marshes-help-protect-shorelines/
SALT MARSH
VEGETATION
EXAMPLES
• Dominated by: https://plants.ifas.ufl.edu/plant-directory/juncus-roemerianus/ https://plants.ifas.ufl.edu/plant-directory/cladium-jamaicense/

• Black Needlerush (Juncus

Roemerianus)
• Smooth Cordgrass (Spartina
Alterniflora)
• Sawgrass (Cladium Jamaicense)

https://www.seashoretoforestfloor.com/smooth-cordgrass-spartina-alterniflora/
SAWGRASS MARSHES

• Sawgrass is the perennial sedge in

the Everglades
• Reproduce through rhizome root
system https://www.sciencesource.com/archive/Sawgrass-in-Florida-Everglades-SS2513563.html

• Average hydroperiod is 9-10

months
• Average water depth in wet
season is 1.5 ft
• Most common type of marsh

https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/southflorida/habitats/freshwater-marshes/sawgrass-marshes
SAWGRASS MARSH VEGETATION EXAMPLES

Green Arrow Arum Alligator Lily Swamp Lily

https://plants.ifas.ufl.edu/plant-directory/peltandra-virginica/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hymenocallis_palmeri https://gardeningsolutions.ifas.ufl.edu/plants/ornamentals/swamp-lily.html

FRESHWATER MARSHES

• Non-tidal systems that are controlled by grasses, sedges, and other

emergent hydrophytes. 
https://nhpbs.org/natureworks/nwep7h.htm
• Usually found near mouths of rivers or along lakes 
• Periodically or continually flooded.
• Typically low, flat, and poorly drained. Alkaline soils with high
concentrations of minerals and calcium.
•  The vegetation found in freshwater marshes consist of tall reed
plants, Cladium sedges, Typha grasses, floating aquatic plants and
Cypress trees.
 https://plants.ifas.ufl.edu/plant-directory/scirpus/

FRESHWATER
MARSH
VEGETATION
EXAMPLES https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/ornamental/water-plants/cattails/controlling-cattails.htm

https://plants.ifas.ufl.edu/plant-directory/panicum-hemitomon/

• Cattails
• Bulrushes (Scirpus)
• Maidencane (Panicum
Hemitomon)
WET PRAIRIES:
MARL AND PEAT
Peat Prairie:
Marl Prairie: 
• North to Central
• Occurs over limestone http://www.southdadenewsleader.com/gallery/robert_chaplin/fresh-water-marl-prairie-
enp/image_2ef224d0-f30c-11e3-ab7b-001a4bcf6878.html
Everglades
bedrock so soil is concentrated
with calcium • Lower plant diversity
• Shortest hydroperiods: 3-7 but longer hydroperiod
months
• Occur in former slough
• Solution holes
habitat or where water
• High plant diversity of over levels have been
100 species artifically lowered

• Important for
invertebrates and fish https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/southflorida/habitats/freshwater-
marshes/wet-prairies/
 Little Bluestem

MARL WET PRAIRIE

VEGETATION
• Rosy camphorweed
• Saltmarsh morning glory
https://www.naturehills.com/grass-little-bluestem
• Black sedge/black bog rush
• Southern beak sedge
• Spreading beak sedge
Semaphore Thoroughwort
• Star rush white top
• Gulf Coast spike rush
• Sawgrass
• Gulf dune paspalum
• Blue joint panicum
• Hairawn muhly
• Bull tongue arrowhead
• Southern cattail

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eupatorium_mikanioides
 Pickerelweed

PEAT WET PRAIRIE

VEGETATION
• Water cowbane
• Swamp lily
• Pickerelweed
• Green arrow arum
• Tracy's beaksedge
• Narrowfruit horned beaksedge
• Knotted spikerush
https://plants.ifas.ufl.edu/plant-directory/pontederia-cordata/ • Gulf Coast spikerush
• Gulfdune paspalum
• Maidencane
• Bulltongue arrowhead
SLOUGH

• Submersed and floating aquatic plants

• Deepest of the marsh habitats Shark River Slough
• Average hydroperiod: nearly 12 months
https://fineartamerica.com/featured/shark-river-slough-9-rudy-umans.htmlh

• Average water depth in wet season: over 3 ft

• Tree islands: hardwoods and Cypress Trees

Taylor Slough
https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-anhinga-birds-roosting-on-trees-at-taylor-slough-in-
everglades-national-175175701.html
SLOUGH VEGETATION
• Eastern purple bladderwort
• Leafy bladderwort
• Lemon bacopa
• Big floating heart
• Marsh mermaid weed
• American white water lily
• Spatterdock, yellow pond lily
• Slim spike rush
• Bull tongue arrowhead

Utricularia species, Yellow Bladderwort

https://plants.ifas.ufl.edu/plant-directory/utricularia-species/
 LITERATURE CITED
• Brown, P., Wright, A.L. The Role of Periphyton in the Everglades. University of Florida, IFAS Extension. Retrieved from: 
https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/ss522
• Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. (2019). Salt Marshes.Retrieved from: 
https://myfwc.com/research/habitat/coastal-wetlands/information/salt-marshes/
• Florida Museum. (2018, October 3). South Florida Aquatic Environments: Wet Prairies. Retrived from: 
https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/southflorida/habitats/freshwater-marshes/wet-prairies/
• Lodge, T.E. (2017). The Everglades Handbook: Understanding the Ecosystem. CRC Press. 
• Main, M. Freshwater Wetlands Ecosystem Module Ecology of Freshwater Wetlands & Marshes [PowerPoint Slides]. University of Florida, IFAS
Extension. 
• University of Florida, IFAS Extension. Florida Wetlands: Freshwater Marshes. Retrieved from: 
https://soils.ifas.ufl.edu/wetlandextension/types/marsh.htm
• University of Florida, IFAS Extension. Aquatic and Wetland Plants in Florida. Retrieved from:
https://plants-archive.ifas.ufl.edu/manage/why-manage-plants/aquatic-and-wetland-plants-in-florida/