The effort to save a rapidly disappearing plant that holds vast areas of the Louisiana coast together is getting another boost from the federal government. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has awarded $1.6 million to a group of Louisiana scientists searching for ways to save roseau cane, a tall-growing marsh grass that has been decimated by a foreign insect that first appeared in Louisiana about seven years ago. Roseau’s thick roots bind together the lowest section of the Mississippi River, an area known as the Bird’s Foot Delta. As the plant dies, large sections of the Delta converted to open water and exacerbated the state’s already dire land loss crisis.