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Hydrophytes are plants that have adapted to life in water or in the waterlogged environments commonly found in wetlands. Of the approximately 20,000 different vascular plants in the U.S., only about one third are able to survive in wetland setting, as they have adapted to the oxygen deficient substrantes that a water saturated environment produces.
Although it may be difficult, though certainly not impossible, for an upland plant to survive in a wetland, many wetland plants can survive quite nicely in upland settings. Thus, it is appropriate to avoid hard and fast rules about plant/wetland patterns but, unfortunately, the legal delineation of a wetland is often based largely on the type of plant material presented. To aid in this process, four classifications of wetland plants are used for delineation purposes:
1. Obligate hydrophytes - plants that are nearly always limited to wetlands or deep water environments. Of the 7,000 plants found in wetlands only about 1800 plants fall in to this category.
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2. Facultative wetland species - plants that favor wetlands over upland locations
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3. Facultative species - plants that are found equally in wetland and upland settings
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4. Facultative upland species - plants that more commonly reside in upland areas but are found in wetland areas between 1% and 33% of the time.
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*Please note: The link below will take you to the National List of Plant Species that Occur in Wetlands as listed by The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. For regulatory purposes, regional lists have been developed and are utilized.
http://www.nwi.fws.gov/bha/
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