• Desert marshes are vital habitats for many plants and animals.Jupiterimages/Photos.com/Getty Images
  
  A marsh within a desert may sound improbable but in several states with desert habitats, the edge or end of a river often becomes a marshy refuge for fish, birds, game and plants. Some of these areas, like the Bosque del Apache in New Mexico, Harper Dry Lake Alkali Marsh in the Mojave Desert and a variety of desert areas in the Arizona Sonora, are under federal, state or other protection; others are under private ownership.
  
  

Secret Valley, California

• In a study of Native American land use, West and McGuire of UC Davis list over two dozen desert marsh plants in one high desert area, including aquatic plants, grasses, sedges, cattails, rushes and pond lilies. Shrubs include sagebrush, greasewood, rabbitbrush and horsebrush, with junipers, Indian rice, sheep sorrel and pines scattered in more disturbed areas. While West and McGuire are most focused on ancient burning cycles and how they affected land use and fertility, they identify modern dangers to these fragile environments, some of which have already lost water to residential and recreational spread, along with other human activities.
  
  

Mojave Plant Communities

• The Harper Dry Lake area is composed of several distinct desert communities, among them two nearly-always dry areas: desert sink scrub and saltbrush scrub. The marsh area is extremely alkaline, as is the surrounding land. Marsh plants include tall cattails, alkali-tolerant bulrush, saltgrass and pickleweed.
  
  Surrounding plants at a greater distance from the water include desert holly, seepweed and other plants able to tolerate strongly alkaline and dry conditions.
  
  

Bosque Del Apache, New Mexico

• Marshlands are a part of this extensive federal preserve along the Rio Grande River on the edge of the Chihuahuan Desert in New Mexico. Areas of this large nature preserve are burned, flooded, planted with wildlife foods and managed by federal staff and bordering farmers. One of the most interesting aspects of this national wildlife preserve is the cooperation between staff and farmers, Farmers grow corn to help sustain migrating and resident wildlife, including hundreds of birds, as does federal staff. Native food plants encouraged and supported include smartweed, millets, chufa, bulrushes and sedges. Cottonwoods and willows mark the path of the river.
  
  

Invasive and Nuisance Plants

• The most aggressive plant plaguing desert marshes in general is salt cedar, or tamarisk. Adaptable to the high-alkaline, high-heat and low-water growing conditions, this originally ornamental plant takes over native vegetation, choking out competition for scarce water. An additional invader, phragmites, is appearing in Utah's northern marshes and along the shore of the Great Salt Lake. It's interesting to note that plants welcome in one desert marsh area are not necessarily welcome in all desert marsh areas--bulrushes and cattails had so clogged a rare marsh in Nevada that burnoff was required.