Salicornia pacifica ( ) ( )

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 are characterized by a thicker spike and a stronger tendency to root along the decumbent or prostrate stems. These have been described as Salicornia pacifica var. uthaensis. However, along the lower San Joaquin River, they merge completely within coastal types. "A Flora of the Marshes of California. Herbert L. Mason".