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Show CELERY AS DUCK FOOD Winter Buds and Root Stocks Are Relished Best. Plant Is Wholly Submerged With Long, Flexible, Ribbon-Like Leaves of Light Translucent Green Flowers Are Peculiar. (By W. L. M'ATEE.) The names wild celery and canvas-back canvas-back duck have been closely associated associat-ed in the annals of American sport. To a certain extent this association Is justified, since the canvas back ob- j tains about one-fourth of its food from, ' this plant a greater proportion than j any other duck. However, the assen tion that the flavor of the canvasback; j Is superior to that of any other duck and that it depends on a diet of wild celery is not proved, to say the least. The scaups or bluebills and the redhead red-head also are very fond of wild celery, cel-ery, and are fully as capable of getting get-ting the delicious buds as the canvas-back. canvas-back. Several other ducks get more or less of this food, the writer finding that even the scoters on a northern lake in fall lived almost exclusively on it for a time. All parts of the plant are eaten by ducks but the tender winter buds and root stocks are relished rel-ished best Wild celery buds can usu- Wild Celery. ally be obtained by the diving ducks, such as the bluebills, redheads, canvasback can-vasback and scoters. The non-diving species, as the mallard, black duck, baldpate and the geese get an occasional occa-sional bud, but more often they feed upon the leaves. Wild celery is a wholly submerged plant with long, flexible, ribbon-like leaves of light translucent green and of practically the same width (anywhere (any-where from one-fourth to three-fourths three-fourths of an inch, from root to tip, This plant may be distinguished from the eelgrass, which lives in brackish or salt water, by the fact that its leaves grow in bundles from the root stock, while those of eelgrass arise singly and alternate on opposite sides of the stem. The flowers of wild celery are peculiar. pecu-liar. The staminate flowers attached at the base of the plants shed pollen, which floats on the surface of the -water and fertilizes the pistillate flower. The latter is attached to a long slender, slen-der, round stem, which contracts into in-to a spiral, drawing the flower under the water after fertilization. The seed pod into which the pollenized flower develops is straight or curved, a little slenderer than a common lead pencil and from 3 to 6 inches long. It contains embedded in a clear jelly, small dark seeds, In number about BO to the inch. No such pod is borne by any other fresh water plant. |