Scott Hanko
Marsh Grass
Spartina alterniflora (Smooth Cordgrass or Saltmarsh Cordgrass) is a perennial deciduous grass which is found in intertidal wetlands, especially estuarine salt marshes. It grows 1-1.5 m tall, and has smooth, hollow stems which bear leaves up to 20-60 cm long and 1.5 cm wide at their base, which are sharply tapered and bend down at their tips. Like its relative Saltmeadow Cordgrass S. patens, it produces flowers and seeds on only one side of the stalk. The flowers are a yellowish-green, turning brown by the winter. It has rhizoidial roots, which, when broken off, can result in vegetative asexual growth. The roots are an important food resource for Snow Geese.
S. alterniflora is noted for its capacity to act as an environmental engineer. It grows out into the water at the seaward edge of a salt marsh, and accumulates sediment and enables other habitat-engineering species, such as mussels, to settle. This accumulation of sediment and other substrate-building species gradually builds up the level of the land at the seaward edge, and other, higher-marsh species move onto the new land. As the marsh accretes, S. alterniflora moves still further out to form a new edge. S. alterniflora grows in tallest forms at the outermost edge of a given marsh, displaying shorter morphologies up onto the landward side of the Spartina belt.
S. alterniflora is native to the Atlantic coast of the Americas from Newfoundland, Canada south to northern Argentina, where it forms a dominant part of brackish coastal saltmarshes.
Long Beach, Smithtown Long Island NY
Marsh Grass
Spartina alterniflora (Smooth Cordgrass or Saltmarsh Cordgrass) is a perennial deciduous grass which is found in intertidal wetlands, especially estuarine salt marshes. It grows 1-1.5 m tall, and has smooth, hollow stems which bear leaves up to 20-60 cm long and 1.5 cm wide at their base, which are sharply tapered and bend down at their tips. Like its relative Saltmeadow Cordgrass S. patens, it produces flowers and seeds on only one side of the stalk. The flowers are a yellowish-green, turning brown by the winter. It has rhizoidial roots, which, when broken off, can result in vegetative asexual growth. The roots are an important food resource for Snow Geese.
S. alterniflora is noted for its capacity to act as an environmental engineer. It grows out into the water at the seaward edge of a salt marsh, and accumulates sediment and enables other habitat-engineering species, such as mussels, to settle. This accumulation of sediment and other substrate-building species gradually builds up the level of the land at the seaward edge, and other, higher-marsh species move onto the new land. As the marsh accretes, S. alterniflora moves still further out to form a new edge. S. alterniflora grows in tallest forms at the outermost edge of a given marsh, displaying shorter morphologies up onto the landward side of the Spartina belt.
S. alterniflora is native to the Atlantic coast of the Americas from Newfoundland, Canada south to northern Argentina, where it forms a dominant part of brackish coastal saltmarshes.
Long Beach, Smithtown Long Island NY