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Applied Quiz: Wetland and Shoreline Plants

A second set of questions on this chapter, weighted toward using the ideas rather than recalling them. Each one puts you in a situation and asks what the chapter's framework says to do.

1. A lake association is choosing between riprap and a native planting to stop shoreline erosion. What does this chapter say the planting offers that rock does not?

  1. Nothing — riprap is simply more effective
  2. A living shoreline uses plants from submerged through upland zones, so roots bind soil, stems absorb wave energy, and the band also traps sediment and filters runoff before it reaches the water
  3. Plants are cheaper but work less well
  4. Native plantings only work on rivers, not lakes
Show Answer

The correct answer is B. The chapter describes a continuous vegetated band from underwater to upland and notes that lake associations and watershed districts increasingly prefer it to hard structures. Riprap stops erosion at one line; the planting also does the filtering and habitat work that riprap cannot.

Concept Tested: Living Shorelines

See: Chapter 5

2. Your rain garden holds water for four days after a storm. What does the chapter's description tell you?

  1. It is working perfectly — longer holding means better filtration
  2. Something is wrong; a rain garden should drain within 24 to 48 hours, and standing water past that means infiltration is failing
  3. Four days is fine as long as the plants are wetland species
  4. Rain gardens are supposed to hold water permanently
Show Answer

The correct answer is B. The 24-to-48-hour window is the design target, and it is not arbitrary — it is long enough for roots and soil microbes to strip pollutants, short enough to avoid becoming a permanent pond and mosquito habitat. Persistent standing water usually points to compacted soil or an undersized infiltration area.

Concept Tested: How Rain Gardens Work

See: Chapter 5

3. Someone selects only wetland-obligate species for a rain garden because "it's a wet feature." What problem does this chapter identify?

  1. None — wetland plants are the correct choice
  2. A rain garden swings between temporary flooding and dry spells between storms, so plants must tolerate both; strict wetland species may fail in the dry weeks
  3. Wetland plants are illegal to plant outside wetlands
  4. Wetland species do not filter pollutants
Show Answer

The correct answer is B. The chapter states the requirement directly: rain garden plants must tolerate both temporary flooding and dry periods. This is why Swamp Milkweed, which handles ordinary garden soil as well as wet ground, is a better rain-garden choice than something that needs permanent saturation.

Concept Tested: Rain Garden Plant Selection

See: Chapter 5

4. A northern Minnesota bog supports pitcher plants and sundews. What does their presence tell you about that site's chemistry?

  1. The soil is unusually fertile
  2. The bog is fed mainly by rainfall, making it acidic and very low in nutrients — carnivory is how these plants get nitrogen and phosphorus the soil cannot supply
  3. The site was recently disturbed
  4. The water is alkaline and calcium-rich
Show Answer

The correct answer is B. Carnivorous plants are a chemistry readout. Because bogs take their water from rain rather than groundwater, they are nutrient-poor and acidic, and trapping insects is a workaround. Option D describes a fen, which is the contrasting wetland type.

Concept Tested: Bog Plant Adaptations

See: Chapter 5

5. You find a "cattail-choked" marsh with dense uniform stands and little other vegetation. What does this chapter suggest is most likely growing there?

  1. Native Broad-leaved Cattail, which naturally forms monocultures
  2. Hybrid Cattail (Typha x glauca), which combines the toughness of both parents and forms dense stands that crowd out native marsh plants
  3. Wild Rice
  4. Bulrush
Show Answer

The correct answer is B. The chapter makes this exact point: many Minnesota wetlands described as cattail-choked are dominated by the hybrid rather than the native. Native Broad-leaved Cattail in balanced numbers is a valuable marsh plant, which is why option A misreads the situation.

Concept Tested: Native vs. Hybrid Cattail

See: Chapter 5

6. In the field you need to tell a sedge from a grass. What is the quickest check?

  1. Sedges are always taller
  2. Roll the stem between your fingers — sedge stems are triangular in cross-section, which is what "sedges have edges" means
  3. Sedges only grow in standing water
  4. Sedges have no seed heads
Show Answer

The correct answer is B. The old botanist's line — sedges have edges, rushes are round, grasses have knees that bend to the ground — is a genuine field test you can do by feel. Option C is wrong in a useful way: sedge meadows sit in consistently moist ground that is rarely submerged.

Concept Tested: Identifying Sedges

See: Chapter 5

7. A hiker finds a Showy Lady's Slipper and wants to move one to her garden "to protect it." What does this chapter say?

  1. Transplanting is a good conservation practice for rare orchids
  2. It is illegal in Minnesota to pick, uproot or destroy native lady's slippers, and transplants almost always die — the plant may be decades old and took over ten years to first bloom
  3. It is legal as long as she replants it in a wetland
  4. The plant is common enough that moving one does no harm
Show Answer

The correct answer is B. Two independent reasons stack here: the legal protection, and the biology that makes rescue-by-transplant fail. Orchids depend on specific soil fungi that do not come along with the plant, which is why the survival rate is so poor.

Concept Tested: Showy Lady's Slipper Protection

See: Chapter 5

8. Tussock Sedge forms raised mounds in a sedge meadow. Why does that structure matter ecologically?

  1. The mounds are a sign of disease
  2. The raised pedestals create dry microsites within a wet meadow, giving frogs, nesting birds and invertebrates places to shelter above the water line
  3. They prevent other plants from growing
  4. They are formed by muskrats, not the plant
Show Answer

The correct answer is B. Tussock Sedge is a structural species — it builds physical habitat rather than just occupying space, which is why it anchors sedge-meadow restorations and bioswale plantings. Structure at this scale is habitat.

Concept Tested: Sedge Meadow Structure

See: Chapter 5

9. A watershed district wants to reduce phosphorus reaching a lake from surrounding lawns. Using this chapter, where does the leverage sit?

  1. Only in treating the lake water itself
  2. In the vegetated zones between lawn and water — upland buffer and transitional plantings intercept runoff, and sedge meadows filter sediment and nutrients before they reach open water
  3. In removing all cattails from the shoreline
  4. In deepening the lake
Show Answer

The correct answer is B. The chapter assigns the buffering job to the upland and transitional zones, and separately notes that sedge meadows filter sediment and nutrients before they reach open water. Option C would remove plants that are themselves absorbing nitrogen and phosphorus.

Concept Tested: Buffer Zones and Water Filtration

See: Chapter 5

10. Sphagnum moss is described as "the bog builder." What does that mean in practice?

  1. It simply grows where bogs already exist
  2. It holds up to twenty times its dry weight in water and actively acidifies its surroundings, so it creates and maintains the very conditions that define a bog
  3. It is the only plant that can grow in a bog
  4. It builds bogs by trapping insects
Show Answer

The correct answer is B. Sphagnum is an ecosystem engineer — it does not merely tolerate bog conditions, it manufactures them, and the peat that accumulates beneath it is the bog itself. Option D describes the carnivorous plants, which are responding to the chemistry sphagnum creates.

Concept Tested: Sphagnum Moss and Bog Formation

See: Chapter 5