Distichlis spicata

 

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, less frequently dentate, with or without a prominent marginal vein, occasionally with a few long hairs on the back. Widespread at low to middle elevations throughout California: salt marshes and sandy flats along the coast from San Diego county to Del Norte county, marshes and alkaline flats in the Central Valley and north of Siskiyou county, coastal and foothill southern California east into the deserts, and east of the Sierra Nevada crest from Inyo county to Modoc county; north to British Columbia, east to Atlantic, southern states, Mexico. "A Flora of the Marshes of California. Herbert L. Mason".