FIELD ID CHARACTERISTICS:
This grass may spread by runners in straight lines or may form tufted growths.
Synonym(s): Spartina pumila, Sporobolus pumilus
Description: Fairly low to medium height, graceful, meadow-like grass, up to 1 m tall. Spreading by elongated rhizomes.
Leaves: Narrow, linear leaf blades rolled inward and less than 3 mm wide and 35 cm long. Stems wiry and hollow.
Flowers/Fruit: Open, terminal panicle with 3 to 6 alternately arranged spikes which contain densely packed spikelets, 7 to 12 mm long. Flowers and fruits June to September, but populations often do not flower every year.
Habit and Range: Brackish marshes, low sand dunes and sand flats along the outer Coastal Plain. Saltmeadow cordgrass can grow in vast expanses above the high tide line.
COMMON CONFUSIONS:
Spartina patens (saltmeadow cordgrass) has wiry stems whereas other species of Spartina have wider stems. Distichlis spicata (saltgrass) is another saltmarsh species with narrow, flattened leaf blades and a fatter seedhead composed of short seed clusters grouped along a stalk.
Click here to view Spartina alterniflora.
Click here to view Distichlis spicata.
Link to side-by-side comparisons page
