 Photo ©
Carl Farmer |
Common in saltmarshes and bare ground on the shore. Spikelets 7-12 mm ID: Characterised by often having a few panicle branches sticking out stiffly at irregular angles. Even when the branches spread, their side-branches and individual spikelets seem to remain appressed to the branches. Branches 2-3 together. Spikelets similar to Poa but parallel-sided. Glumes and lemmas have broad colourless margins. One glume much larger than the other and lemmas larger than both. No awns. 3-10 flowers per spikelet. Ligule short, 1-2 mm, but rounded, not cut off square like Red Fescue, another saltmarsh grass which can look similar but has awned lemmas. Lemmas 3-4 mm long (only 2 mm in Reflexed Saltmarsh-grass) Other features: Forms dense tufts on bare mud or muddy shingle, trapping debris from the tide with its creeping stems to build up a soil and eventually making a continuous saltmarsh turf. The much rarer Reflexed Saltmarsh-grass does not have creeping stems (stolons). |
