FIELD ID CHARACTERISTICS:
Smooth cordgrass is the most abundant and ecologically significant large plant in brackish or salt marshes as it supplies detritus to the estuaries. Salt marshes are comprised almost solely of this species.
Synonym(s): Sporobolus alterniflorus
Description: Medium to tall (0.5 to 2.5 m) upright, perennial grass. Contains soft, spongy culms which may be a centimeter thick at base. Plants may be shorter and stunted on higher ground.
Leaves: Long, grass-like blades flat and tapered to a sharp point. Leaves about 1 cm wide and up to 40 cm long and typically smooth or nearly so.
Flowers/Fruit: Terminal inflorescence is compact so it appears cylindrical. Inflorescence about 10 to 30 cm long with 5 to 30 alternately arranged spikelets. Flowering stem tends to be one-sided. Flowers and fruits August to October.
Habit and Range: Salt or brackish marshes along the outer coast, frequently growing in water and forming dense stands to the exclusion of nearly all other species.
COMMON CONFUSIONS:
Spartina alterniflora (smooth cordgrass) has similar but wider, flatter stems than Spartina patens (saltmeadow cordgrass).
Click here to view Spartina patens.
Link to side-by-side comparisons page
