Overview of Salt Grass
Salt grass is a halophyte. It is used in lawns where it is not preferred. The subspecies, Distichlis spicata (L) Greene, is located in California.
It tolerates the alkaline soil in the marsh plains and salt pans of coastal salt marshes. This grass can be considered invasive grass.
Geographic Distribution includes most of western North America including coastal California. This plant is located in Shorebird Sanctuary. They were donated by the Steward of the loss Cerritos Wetlands and are located in Long Beach California.
Common Names
- Inland Saltgrass
- Alkali Salt grass
- Salt grass
Pros and Cons
You can find these grasses mostly on swampy plains of the salt marsh. These plants are often found on top of pickled herbs in Salicornia Virginia.
Salt grass is the source of food for various ducts. It provides a nesting place for birds and a living space for small animals. It is also a food source for the larvae of the Butterfly and the Marsh Vole. However, it can also cause rumen compaction in cattle.
Many people Native to America in Nevada and Utah use saltgrass as a cereal crop. However, it may cause grass allergy in many people.
Physical characteristics
Salt grass plants are usually 20 to 30 feet long, broad, large, and less dense. Plants can stand on the ground to some extent. Salt grass plants have hard, thin, and pointed blades that alternate up the stem.
The blades are 2.54 to 15.2 (1-6 in) long and about 6.3 mm (0.25 in) wide. These plants are bluish-green and wrapped with salt crystals. Rhizomes are yellowish and scaly.
Straw-colored flowers bloom in spring. The seeds are smooth and 1.5 mm (0.06 in) long. Salt grasses get their food through photosynthesis.
Reproduction
Reproduction is asexual and sexual. Plants mainly propagate rhizomes throughout the year. Plants propagate through their underground rhizome system. They make new clones and produce new sprouts of the original plant. Male flowers and female flowers are different types of flowers.
Male spikelets, that is, small branches are thick and yellow. Whereas the female spikelets are more membranous and thinner than the male spikelet. The flowers bloom from the month of April to July. Pollen captures pollen either by self-fertilization or by air or water transfer to female plant stains.
Adaptation
Saltgrass excretes salt through his salt glands. When its roots receive seawater, the brackish water is expelled through special holes. With the help of the sun, the water in the leaves evaporates and the remaining salt crystals appear on the blades of the leaves. The ducts in the leaf stem transport oxygen to the rhizomes.
How to identify salt grass?
This grass is known to be a hard-growing, occasional lawn weed. Its sod is dense, and the beach is small. It is very long at the edges and its collar is wide with very long hair.
Salt grasses are compressed and flattened. Its stiff, blades are short, hard, and with sharp points. Salt grass is different because male and female plants usually grow in separate patches.
Life cycle Of Salt Grass
Salt grass grows mostly in saline areas, swamps, flats, and sometimes in lawns. You can also find it in many parts of the continent of the United State and grows on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean.
This grass can grow from seeds and spread to a considerable level. Grasses like salt grass live for two or more years and have a deep root structure that can give rise to new grasses.
Control
Saltgrass is grown on lawns where it is not preferred. This is a very special kind of grass and this is not easy to manage. You cannot rely on appropriate herbal control methods such as hand mowing and watering techniques.
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