Like most terrestrial plants, spring is the time for growing, flowering and having lots of sex. Same thing goes on with the underwater plants you sail over. Eelgrass is a flowering plant adapted to live underwater in shallow shoreline gardens – and it’s a major indicator plant in the Salish Sea. It makes seeds like grass does, but also spreads by below ground spreading of root structures. It stabilizes vast tidal areas and provide safety and food for many species. Eelgrass growns in almost every bay with clean water and muddy or sandy bottoms that are from at least five feet deep. It’s not in places with cloudy water near pulp mills or sewer plants, and as such, eelgrass is critical to the health of the Salish Sea. Listen up! You might have noticed signs in harbors telling you to not anchor over eelgrass beds where anchors and props tear eelgrass to pieces.

 

Eelgrass creates dense thickets, really complex gardens of blades all waving in the currents and making perfect habitat for a vast variety of creatures both residential or just passing though. Shellfish such as clams, crabs and snails find homes here. Juvenile salmon use eelgrass beds for protection and food, herring lay eggs right on the leaf blades and the crazy-looking pipefish even looks like eelgrass to camouflage itself with an elongated stem-like body that swims upright. When the tide recedes and leaves eelgrass meadows dry, they hold water like a sponge and continue to shelter the same creatures until the water returns. Hang your head over the dinghy’s side, drift over a shallow eelgrass meadow and you might be thrilled at the amount of wildlife you’ll see scurrying about.

 

Larry Eifert paints and writes about the Pacific Northwest from Port Townsend. His large-scale murals can be seen in many national parks across America, and at larryeifert.com.

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