Wetland Habitats of the Past
Little Bean Marsh Conservation Area
July 4th Wednesday (1804)
...proceeded on, passed the mouth of a Bayeau lading from a large Lake on the S.S. which has the appearance of being once the bed of the river & reaches parrelel for several Miles...
William Clark
Traveling up the Missouri River, Lewis and Clark found a complex river snaking its way from bluff to bluff. The river overflowed into backwaters and sloughs and refreshed the miles of marshes and wetlands bordering its path.
Little Bean Marsh is an example of river habitat that remains much like the wetlands noted in William Clark's journal. Amazed by the wildlife, he wrote of geese and other waterfowl nesting nearby in spring and summer.
An outstanding natural marsh, Little Bean is lush with river bulrush, cattails and bur reed. Nearby, the large leaves of American lotus nearly cover Cottonwood Slough, a river backwater with waters deeper than Little Bean Marsh. Surrounding those wetlands is a bottomland forest of towering bur and chinquapin oaks, ash, pawpaw, black walnut and pecan trees.
As they scouted the bottomlands, Lewis and Clark would have found additional species that still grow here - buttonbush, willows, cottonwood and blue flag iris thrive along the edges of the marshlands. Little Bean Marsh provides today's river explorers with a look back at Missouri River wetlands that have survived the changes of time.
Courtesy hmdb.org
