I am middle aged and I can say for sure that the marsh where I grew up has traveled a good bit up slope at Mom and Dad's house. There was a cypress swamp at the head of the creek with some enormous virgin trees. It is gone. Salt got it. There is spartina and juncus where the cypress were 20 years ago. The marsh was a cool little place to learn about environmental gradients. Down by the big creek it had spartina patens and alternaflora along with juncus roemerianus. They all grew in patches according to their elevation relative to the mean tides. Oh yeah, there was a fringe of cynosuroides on the high marsh. As you moved up the marsh the salt marsh gave way to cattails and marsh mallow. Furthers up the gradient was a stand of giant bald cypress. Well, the spartina started moving up slope into the cattails and mallows. In the span of 20 years the salt marsh is all the way to the head of the ravine and the freshwater marsh is gone.

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Edited: 05/22/2019 at 09:01 AM by scombrid