Responses of Typha glauca to increased salinities have been investigated under laboratory conditions. Old stalks and their connected rhizomes with active buds were harvested from a freshwater marsh during winter and trimmed by removing old roots and portions of rhizomes and by cutting off most of the old sterile stalks; the specimens were cleaned and washed free of debris. These pieces of short rhizome segments, old sterile stalks, and attached buds were allowed to grow in nutrient solution until their buds and new adventitious roots had grown for 7 or 10 days. They were then subjected to salt (NaCl) concentrations, which varied from 0% to 3.5%. Adventitious roots exposed to high salt concentrations immediately ceased elongation, but lateral root primordia continued to emerge for 1-2 days; no new adventitious roots emerged from plants in the highest salt concentrations. In the highest salt concentrations, cell and tissue maturations accelerated into the root tip region, and patterns of cell wall depositions varied from those in the control, untreated plants. Buds elongated into shoots concomitantly with adventitious root emergence and elongation. At higher salt concentrations, new shoots slowed in growth rates over 1-3 days after treatment started, but the plants continued to live for over a week as their shoot lengths were then reduced.

Key words: anatomical modifications, salinity, Typha glauca