Scientific Name
Distichlis spicata (L.) Greene (Synonyms: Distichlis stricta)
Common Name(s)
Saltgrass, inland saltgrass, alkali saltgrass
Tribe / Family Name
Cynodonteae
Flowering Period
June to September
Symbol
DISP
Description
Saltgrass is a native warm-season dioecious perennial that is rhizomatous; it reproduces by seed and creeping, scaly underground rhizomes. Culms range from 10–60 cm in height. Its inflorescence is a contracted panicle or raceme that is usually 4–8 cm long with a few congested spikelets. Spikelets are usually 9–15 mm long, strongly compressed, and of both sexes: the pistillate spikelets are 5- to 9-flowered and greenish; the staminate spikelets are 7- to 16-flowered and yellowish. Glumes are unequal, lanceolate, glabrous, 3- to 7-nerved, and acute: the pistillate glumes are larger (the lower glumes usually 3–5 mm long; the upper glumes usually 4–6 mm long); the staminate glumes smaller (the lower glumes 2–4 mm long; the upper glumes 2.5–4.5 mm long). Lemmas are usually glabrous, 9- to 11-nerved, and firmer than the glumes: the pistillate lemmas larger, 4.5–8 mm long; the staminate lemmas smaller, 3.5–5.5 mm long. Awns are absent. Sheaths are open, glabrous, and sparsely pilose. Auricles are absent. Ligules are a ciliate membrane, up to 0.6 mm long, truncate, glabrous, and usually surrounded by long hairs. Blades are 2–12 cm long, up to 4 mm wide, flat to involute, mostly cauline and vertically 2-ranked, stiff and sharp-pointed with scabrous edges, and occasionally scabrous to pilose adaxially.
General Info
Saltgrass can be found in moist alkaline or saline soils in basins, along ponds, lakes and reservoirs, ditches, seepage areas, springs, dry floodplains, sand dunes, foothills and plains.
Similar Species
Saltgrass is very distinctive and not easily confused with other grasses.
Picture of growth habit.
Inflorescence is a contracted panicle or raceme.
Close-up picture of spikelet.
Close-up picture of ligule.
Illustration of saltgrass. USDA-NRCS PLANTS Database / Hitchcock, A.S. (rev. A. Chase). 1950. <i>Manual of the grasses of the United States.</i> USDA Miscellaneous Publication No. 200. Washington, DC.