One of the reasons that it has not been widely recognized that much of the decay of leaves of smooth cordgrass takes place in the standing position, is that on fine clear days, when observers are most likely to be out in the marsh, leaves of smooth cordgrass are very dry, so dry that microbial activity cannot occur. But there is a wetting phenomen that is in effect nearly every night -- the phenomen is dewset. The beads of water on these cordgrass blades were photographed on a normal autumn morning. The dew does not usually evaporate until midmorning, and can provide enough water to permit substantial rates of fungal growth. Check out the leaf-wetness data for a site in the SE USA. See Newell SY, Fallon RD, Cal Rodriguez RM, Groene LC. 1985. Influence of rain, tidal wetting and relative humidity on release of carbon dioxide by standing-dead saltmarsh plants. Oecologia 68:73-79; and Newell SY, Arsuffi TL, Palm LA. 1998. Seasonal and vertical demography of dead portions of shoots of smooth cordgrass in a south-temperate saltmarsh. Aquat Bot 60:325-335.