Distichlis spicata  (Saltgrass) ( ) Gramineae Culms 1-4 dm. tall, erect or in coastal plants sometimes prostrate and strongly stoloniferous; blades numerous, spreading or sometimes closely ascending or erect, either as long as or longer than or sometimes shorter than the spikes; spikes green, drying straw brown, or in coastal plants often purplish-tinged, 1-6 cm. long, ovate to oblong; spikelets mostly 1-2 cm. long, the pistillate spikelets often congested and more or less closely imbricate, the staminate ones usually less congested and more or less closely imbricate, the individual spikelets more easily distinguished; the first glume 2-3 mm. long, the second 3-4 mm. long, lemmas 3-6 mm. long, the pistillate lemmas more coriaceous and closely imbricate than the staminate ones, sometimes with a broad hyaline margin; palea 3-5 mm. long, rather soft, narrowly or broadly winged below, often with hyaline margins, the keels minutely serrate or serrate-ciliate to near the base, les...

  Typha angustifolia  (Narrow-leaved cattail) ( ) Typhaceae Slender perennial 0.5-1.5 m. tall; pith of stem white; stems about 2/3 as long as the leaves; leaves narrow, plano-concave or plano-convex or strongly convex on the back, 5-6 mm. wide, dark green; sheaths appearing cylindrical below but actually open to base, usually conspicuously auriculate above, rarely some sheaths tapering to the blade, the auricles scarious-margined; pistillate and staminate spikes usually separated by a distance twice as great as the diameter of the pistillate spike or greater, rarely less than 0.5 cm. or more than 12 cm. apart; pistillate spike dark brown to reddish brown or in age becoming greenish brown or mottled, usually 6-10 times as long as broad, 8-20 cm. long, 1.8-2.5 cm. thick; pistillate flowers arranged on compound pedicels which when stripped of appendages appear smooth; bracts spatulate, truncate, their blades dark brown, opaque, and firm, slender-stalked; fertile flowers pediceled...

  Typha latifolia  (Common cat-tail) ( ) Typhaceae Plant usually coarse and stout; pith of the stem base white; leaves 12-16, 8-20 mm. broad, nearly flat, light green; sheaths cylindrical but open to base; the scarious upper margin tapering to blade, rarely truncate or slightly auricled; spike-bearing stems subequal to or longer than leaves; pistillate and staminate spikes usually contiguous, rarely separated; pistillate spike dark greenish brown to reddish brown, in age becoming blotched with white, usually about 6 times as long as thick, 10-18 cm. long, 1.8-3 cm. thick; flowers without bracts or the bracts hairlike, on slender, often hairlike, compound pedicels; stigma medium brown to dark brown, lanceolate-ovate, conspicuously fleshy, persistent; sterile flowers with an ellipsoid aborted ovary, tipped by a rudimentary style and much longer than the functional ovary; stamens on branched filaments often 2 or 3 to a cluster; pollen 4-celled, elsewhere reported as orange for th...