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Sporobolus alterniflorus
Also called Smooth Cord Grass, Saltwater Cordgrass, Smooth Cordgrass, American Spartina, Saltmarsh Cord Grass
Atlantic cordgrass is a tall, perennial salt-marsh grass that forms dense stands in intertidal wetlands. It thrives in saline, waterlogged mud and is mainly grown for restoration and shoreline stabilisation rather than in gardens.
Sporobolus alterniflorus, or synonymously known as Spartina alterniflora, the smooth cordgrass, saltmarsh cordgrass, or salt-water cordgrass, is a perennial deciduous grass which is found in intertidal wetlands, especially estuarine salt marshes. It has been reclassified as Sporobolus alterniflorus after a taxonomic revision in 2014, but it is still common to see Spartina alterniflora and in 2019 an interdisciplinary team of experts coauthored a report published in the journal Ecology supporting Spartina as a genus. It grows 1–1.5 m (3–5 ft) tall and has smooth, hollow stems that bear leaves up to 20–60 cm (8–24 in) long and 1.5 cm (1⁄2 in) 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.
Sporobolus schoenoides · Modest prickle grass · Sporobolus pumilus · Cordgrass · Alkali sacaton · Common Cord-grass · Prairie dropseed · Pan dropseed · West Indian Dropseed · West Indian Dropseed · Salt grass · Dropseed
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Sporobolus alterniflorus by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
