Puccinellia nuttalliana

Nuttall's alkali grass

Family: Poaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Nuttall's alkali grass is a native perennial found in California's Central Valley and Great Basin in saline meadows and flats at elevations below 2,640 meters. Flowering from June to September, this grass produces small delicate spikelets with erect to reflexed branches. Growing in dense tufts with slender stems 5 to 30 centimeters tall, it has distinctive flat to slightly rolled leaf blades 1 to 4 millimeters wide. Its leaves are cauline with narrow, flexible blades that adapt well to salty, open terrain. When mature, the grass forms compact inflorescences with spikelets featuring lemmas 2.2 to 3 millimeters long with scabrous-serrate margins near the tip.

Habitat: Saline meadows, flats

Bloom period: Jun-Sep

Elevation: < 2640 m

Bioregions: CA-FP, GB

California counties: Contra Costa, San Bernardino, Los Angeles, Modoc, Riverside, Lassen, Yolo, Tulare, Mono, Kern, Amador, Inyo, Alameda, Siskiyou, Trinity, Mariposa, Tuolumne, Solano, Santa Cruz

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.