Plant Guide > Grasses > Salt Meadow Leptochloa Grass

Salt Meadow Leptochloa Grass

Salt Meadow Leptochloa GrassLeptochloa fascicularis (Lam.) Gray.

The salt marshes and beaches-what wonderfully successful plants they contain, securely anchored, though on drifting sands, and braving the power of waves and winds!

The greater number of our seaside plants bloom in late summer and spend their earlier strength in developing strong roots. which hold them firmly in place, and thick leaves which are unwithering beneath burning skies.

Like other flowering plants of the shore, all of the true salt-water grasses are late in blooming and bear coarse leaves that endure the lashing of storms.

Salt-meadow Leptochloa is a low grass that grows in tufts in brackish marshes or meadows and also on saline soil toward the interior of the country. The stems are spreading, abundantly branched, and frequently send out roots from the basal joints.

The leaves are long and narrow and the uppermost leaf encloses the base of the long panicle which is composed of erect, nearly sessile spikelets.

Salt meadow Leptochloa. Leptochloa fascicularis (Lam.) Gray.

Annual, tufted.

Stem 1-2 1/2 ft. tall, erect or spreading, usually much branched. Sheaths loose, upper one enclosing the base of the panicle. Ligule 1"-2" long. Leaves 3'-12' long, 1"-3" wide, flat.

Panicle 4'-12' long, composed of numerous slender spikes on which are borne the nearly sessile, erect spikelets. Spikelets 5-10-flowered, 3"-5" long. Outer scales unequal, acute, rough on keels; flowering scales hairy on margins near base, 2-toothed at apex and bearing a short awn between the teeth. Stamens 3.

Salt marshes. July to September.

Southern New England to Florida and Texas, also in saline soil from western New York to Nevada and Mexico.