Trianthema portulacastrum  ( ) ( ) Aizoaceae Decumbent, succulent annual herb, branching much as in Cypselea, leaves opposite, simple, petioled, the blades orbicular-ovate, the opposing members of a pair unequal in size; flowers solitary, sessile, inconspicuous, borne under the axillary sheath at every node; sepals lanceolate, mucronate; petals none; stamens 5 or 6; ovary 2-celled or with 1 cell aborted; capsule several-seeded, circumscissile, the thickened, often bilobed, crestlike apical part containing a single embedded seed falling with the capsule valve. Weed along irrigation ditches: Imperial Valley; to Texas and Florida, Baja California and the West Indies.  "A Flora of the Marshes of California. Herbert L. Mason". This hot-weather ephemeral is common and wide-spread in the region. Food preparation:   The seeds were ground and cooked as a gruel. "People of the Desert and Sea, Ethnobotany of the Seri Indians. Richard Stephen Felger and Mary Beck Moser."

  Suaeda nigra  ( ) ( ) Suaeda torreyana, Suaeda fruticosa Chenopodiaceae Suaeda torreyana: plants green, essentially glabrous or sometimes puberulent or sparsely pubescent above, much-branched, erect or ascending. 3-10 dm. tall; twigs and branches usually slender, the internodes usually conspicuous; leaves 2-3 cm. long, linear, very evidently flat, those of the inflorescence becoming reduced to 1-3 times as long as the flower cluster; flowers 1-5 in a cluster in the leaf axils, the clusters separated by the slender, often wiry, internode; calyx deeply cleft, the lobes rounded on back; seeds black, minutely tuberculate. Alkaline floodlands: east of the Sierra Nevada, also Colorado River area and Imperial Valley; north to eastern Oregon, east to Utah and New Mexico. The plants most obviously pubescent have been segregated as Sueda ramosissimma , but intergradations seem to make clear definition difficult between S. ramosissima and S. torreyana .  "A Flora of the Marshes of...

  Salicornia pacifica  ( ) ( ) Amaranthaceae Suffruticose perennial, erect, decumbent, or prostate, usually from a horizontal rhizome, occasionally rooting along the decumbent or prostrate branches, or the individual plant solitary and erect; joints constricted at nodes, 2-5 mm. thick; leaves reduced to a perfoliate collar with opposite cusps, these often obscure, glabrous, glaucous or green; spikers 1-10 cm. long, terminating the ultimate branches, the joints 1.5-2.5 mm. long, usually wider than long, the middle flower of each triad only slightly higher than the lateral ones; sepals 4 or 3, fuses or sometimes those of lateral flowers nearly free; stamens 2, not simultaneous in anthesis; seeds covered with white stiff, appressed hairs, falling free from calyx on dehiscence or adhering to it and falling with it. Salt marshes along the coast: from Baja California to British Columbia, and sparingly in wet saline or alkaline floodlands in the interior. Specimens from the interior ...

  Nitrophila occidentalis  ( ) ( ) Amaranthaceae Low, perennial, rhizomatous, glabrous herb; leaves sessile, fleshy, linear, pungent, 1-3 cm. long, reduced upward, opposite; flowers axillary, perfect sepats 5 to 7, imbricate, carinate; petals none; stamens 5, united at base into a thin yellowish disc; style longer than the subglobose ovary; stigmas 2; achene beaked by the persistent style, included within the connivent sepals, the pericarp membranous. Moist alkaline soils: Central Valley, and east of the Sierra Nevada; south to Baja California.  "A Flora of the Marshes of California. Herbert L. Mason".

  Juncus torreyi  ( ) ( ) Juncaceae Stems stout, 2-6 dm. tall, arising singly from tuber-like thickenings on slender rootstocks; leaves terete, the blades more or less abruptly divergent from the stem, 2-5 mm. thick, auricled; inflorescence terminal with 1 to many many-flowered heads forming a condensed panicle, the entire cluster subtended by a long-pointed sheath; perianth segments light brown, lanceolate-subulate, 4-5 mm. long, the outer segments longer than the inner ones; stamens 6, about 1/2 as long as the perianth; capsule subulate, golden brown, as long as the perianth; seeds reticulate. Wet places at elevations below 5,000 feet: almost throughout coastal and desert southern California, Modoc County; east to Atlantic.  "A Flora of the Marshes of California. Herbert L. Mason".

  Schoenoplectus californicus  (California bulrush) ( ) Scirpus californicus Cyperaceae Perennial sedge with stout, subterete to triangular culms to 4 m. tall; leaves reduced to basal sheaths; involucral leaf solitary, erect, shorter than inflorescence; inflorescence loosely umbellate; spikelets narrow, acute, 5-10 mm long; scales ovate, reddish brown; bristles 2-4 dark red, or sometimes pale red, broad and ciliate or plumose, not barbed; style bifid; achene lenticular, 2 mm. long. Common in marshes along coast from San Diego County to Napa County; Central Valley, occasional in the Mojave Desert (Lancaster, Needles). This species is similar in aspect to Scirpus acutus. It can be distinguished, however, not only by the characters given in the key, but also by its subterete to triangular culms (most noticeable in the upper parts); in S. acutus the culms are terete throughout their length. Also, the spikelets of   S. californicus are smaller, and the scales are more con...

  Schoenoplectus americanus  (Three-square bulrush) ( ) Scirpus americanus Cyperaceae Perennial with horizontal rhizomes; culms erect or arched, sharply triangular, stiff and slender, 0.3-1.1 m. tall; leaf blades to 18 cm. long, keeled, convolute, narrow, 2-3 mm. wide; involucral leaf solitary. 3-10 cm. long; inflorescence a capitate cluster of 1-7 spikelets oblong, acuminate, 8-12 mm. long; scales pale brown to chocolate brown, cleft at apex, short-awned; bristles 2-6, downwardly barbed, unequal in length, from slightly longer than only 1/2 as long as the achene; style 2- or 3-cleft; achene lenticular, or obtusely trigonous, mucronate, 3 mm. long. Widely distributed in wet ground: along coast from Ventura county to Del Norte County, occasional in San Bernardino County and Imperial County; Inyo, Mono, Lassen, and Modoc counties; San Joaquin Valley; occasional in Sacramento Valley.  "A Flora of the Marshes of California. Herbert L. Mason". Scirpus olneyi Perennial sedge wi...

  Eleocharis geniculata  ( ) ( ) Cyperaceae Annual with fibrous roots and caespitose culms; culms subfiliform, striate, 5-25 cm. tall, or sometimes 40 cm. tall; basal leaf sheaths loose, obliquely truncate, with an attenuate tooth; spikelets ovoid, obtuse, much thicker than the culm, many-flowered; scales ovate, obtuse, pale brown with a scarious margin; bristles 6-8, as long as achene; stamens 2 or 3; style bifid; achene depressed, constricted at base, apiculate, spongy, whitish. Marshes and watercourses in southern California: San Bernardino, Riverside, and Imperial counties, widespread.  "A Flora of the Marshes of California. Herbert L. Mason".

  Phragmites australis  (common reed) ( ) Phragmites communis Poaceae Perennial; culms robust, erect, 2-4 m. tall, with stout, creeping rhizomes, these sometimes on the surface forming leafy stolons as much as 9 m. long; blades broad, flat, 2-6 dm. long, the rachilla clothed with long, silky hairs as long as or shorter than the florets, disarticulating above the glumes and at the base of each joint between the florets; lowest floret staminate or neuter; glumes lanceolate, acute, unequal in size, the first glume about 1/2 a long as the upper glume, the second one shorter than the florets; lemmas narrow, long-acuminate, glabrous, 3-nerved, the florets successively smaller; palea much shorter than the lemma. In fresh-water marshes, on banks of streams, and along irrigation ditches: well established in wet places in the Colorado and Mojave deserts, less common and at scattered localities along the coast from San Diego County to Del Norte County, in the delta region, also east of t...

  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...