Flora
(Editor’s Note: With this issue of the Trib, we inaugurate a new aspect to our “Creature Feature.”
I’ll be describing one commonly seen wetland plant in each issue as well as one commonly encountered
wetland/river creature. If you would like to know more about a plant you’ve seen, please let me know
what it is or where I can see it, too. I will research it and publish the information here.)
 Broadleaf Cattail
 
Found in dense colonies of upright leaves that are waist-high to twice as high as a man,
?-inch to nearly an inch wide. Spike-topped stems about the height of the leaves. Male and
young green female spikes usually touching each other. The fractions in the above illustration
connote the approximate size ratio of the drawing to the original plant.
 
Source: Neil Hotchkiss, Common Marsh, Underwater & Floating-leaved Plants of the United States
and Canada (New York: Dover Publications, 1967 and 1970), p. 18
 Fauna
American Eel
Illustration by Sharon Lapham
 
The American Eel is extremely common in the Shawsheen River, and it is the principal
reason we empty all bottles, cans, pipes, and jars before we put them in a boat during
a cleanup. Of the sixteen species of eel in the world, this is the only one found
in American freshwater.
 
Description: The American Eel possesses true jaws and pectoral fins. The pelvic fins
are missing. Extending around the rear end of the body is a single, long, continuous fin,
which is formed by the union of the dorsal, caudal, and anal fins. The skin is thick
and very slimy. The skin is deeply embedded with tiny oblong scales arranged in a mosaic pattern.
 
Age and Growth: Full-grown females may reach a length of 6 feet, but ordinarily,
range between 2 and 3? feet in length. Males do not grow as large, probably not
exceeding 1? to 2 feet in length. Sexual maturity is reached between the ages
of 5 and 10 years. In captivity, eels have lived more than 25 years.
 
Food: The eel is an omnivorous and voracious feeder. It is a scavenger as well as a hunter
of small fishes, insect larvae, crayfish, and shrimp. It is a nocturnal animal, as are most
of its prey. At night, it hunts for food actively, even leaving the water in search of frogs
and small mammals in wet, grassy meadows and fields.
 
Reproduction: The eel is a catadromous fish; that is, it lives and puts on most of its
growth in freshwater. Its life story is truly a remarkable one. It returns to the
Sargasso Sea — the area of highest salinity in the Atlantic Ocean and the area sailors
for centuries have called “the Doldrums” because of the still water and absence of propelling
wind — which is located between Bermuda and the Caribbean Sea, to breed.
 
Adapted from: John F. Scarola, Freshwater Fishes of New Hampshire (Concord, New Hampshire
Fish & Game Dept., 1987), pp. 13-14