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Streetwise Vermont Outdoors


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Looks like a fun day! In my younger years I used to take a Kayak out on rivers, creeks, and lakes to go snorkeling, and also to take pictures of wetland birds. I even had made myself a  sort of monopod contraption with a quick release clamp for my camera in front of the seat on my kayak. Fond memories.

Third picture up from the bottom looks like Bacopa caroliniana. The others it would be helpful to have pictures of under water in the aquarium.

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@Streetwise it just seems to look like Bacopa caroliniana which normally shouldn't grow in Vermont, but I've noticed that sometimes plants haven't been informed of the fact and grow where they shouldn't anyway. Then again it is more plausible that I'm wrong and it is some other aquatic plant species not captured in my identification books which list only species suitable for cultivation in the aquarium, and those not on the endangered species list, or which are outlawed because they are invasive species.

I searched around a bit to find aquatic plants native to Vermont and really didn't see anything that looked quite like it.

Here are some of the sites:

https://dec.vermont.gov/sites/dec/files/wsm/lakes/ans/docs/Key to Common Vermont Aquatic Plant Species 2016.pdf

https://dec.vermont.gov/sites/dec/files/wsm/lakes/ans/docs/Lake and Pond Plants Booklet.pdf

https://vtinvasives.org/sites/default/files/documents/aquatics/Native Aquatic Plants Hi Res.pdf

https://vtinvasives.org/gallery-of-aquatic-invasives

https://maidstonelake.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Aquatic-Invasive-Species.pdf

 

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@Jungle Fan, I have kept Bacopa caroliniana before, and the color, smell, and leaf structure look very similar. The top bits look a little more curly, which is what caught my eye when digging them out.

I looked at many of those links when I was researching zebra mussels, but maybe not all of them.

I have heard of white clouds and Neocaridina in some bodies of water here, so seeing plants with extended range doesn’t surprise me.

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14 hours ago, Streetwise said:

I think the grass is terrestrial, or at-best, semi-aquatic. What is the other plant with the wider leaves?

Hmm, the "grass" looks like Common Reed, which is a non-native invasive, https://vtinvasives.org/invasive/common-reed.🥺

phrag 3.jpg

The plant with the triangle leaves might be another invader, European Water Chestnut, https://www.maine.gov/dep/water/invasives/chestext.htm🤔

WaterChes125.jpg

Edited by Anita
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  • 2 weeks later...
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The reeds died, and I stuffed them underwater to decompose, but the other two collected species are thriving. I dumped in some mulm and some Easy Green, and the lights are doing their thing. The roots are awesome. I'm tempted to just pour in some organic soil and then some gravel. I would encourage everyone to keep utility buckets. You can have a lot of fun with your scraps and staging, without any pressure. This bucket could support fish if I needed a safe spot for a move or something. I haven't seen any Zebra mussels yet, which gives me a clue about where they like to live on the lake (shade).

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It all smells rather minty after handling it!

What was really cool with those collected plants is that their root systems were just networked around hand-sized rocks, with no other real substrate, but they went three or four rock layers deep. It took me several minutes to pull out each plant clump without breaking major roots. These were collected in about two feet of water.

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On 6/16/2021 at 1:36 AM, Hobbit said:

Ahh, that looks like a river I used to go tubing on when I was a kid and we would visit my grandparents in Hannover, NH.

That is the Winooski river in Waterbury, Vermont, where I live. It eventually feeds into Lake Champlain.

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This might help ( I’m using this to see if I can learn to link something 🤣) it is your native plants in Vermont waterways with pictures. I took a picture if the website and address in case this does not work

https://vtinvasives.org/sites/default/files/documents/aquatics/Native Aquatic Plants Hi Res.pdf

this was in reference to the plants you were trying to identify 

 

74D9030E-C6CB-4E36-999A-4CE618C0C1F3.png

Edited by Guppysnail
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Your sailing photos are beautiful, and your cousin's pond really shows off how lush and green that part of the country is--we used to go to New Hampshire in early August and see the greenness and flowers that we have down here in early summer, it was like getting two Junes in one year. I always felt like the water up there is sparklier, too. 

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