''Paspalum vaginatum'' is a species of

grass Poaceae () or Gramineae () is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated in lawns an ...

known by many names, including seashore paspalum, biscuit grass, saltwater couch, silt grass, and swamp couch.''Paspalum vaginatum''.
Pacific Island Ecosystems at Risk. It is native to the Americas, where it grows in tropical and subtropical regions.Duble, R. L

Aggie Horticulture. Texas A&M System. It is found throughout the other tropical areas of the world, where it is an

introduced species An introduced species, alien species, exotic species, adventive species, immigrant species, foreign species, non-indigenous species, or non-native species is a species living outside its native distributional range, but which has arrived there ...

and sometimes an

invasive weed An invasive species otherwise known as an alien is an introduced organism that becomes overpopulated and harms its new environment. Although most introduced species are neutral or beneficial with respect to other species, invasive species ad ...

. It is also cultivated as a

turfgrass A lawn is an area of soil-covered land planted with grasses and other durable plants such as clover which are maintained at a short height with a lawnmower (or sometimes grazing animals) and used for aesthetic and recreational purposes. ...

in many places.Ralish, G
''Paspalum vaginatum'': An alternative to bermudagrass.
University of Florida Turf Science.

Description

It is a perennial grass with

rhizome In botany and dendrology, a rhizome (; , ) is a modified subterranean plant stem that sends out roots and shoots from its nodes. Rhizomes are also called creeping rootstalks or just rootstalks. Rhizomes develop from axillary buds and grow hori ...

s or

stolon In biology, stolons (from Latin '' stolō'', genitive ''stolōnis'' – "branch"), also known as runners, are horizontal connections between organisms. They may be part of the organism, or of its skeleton; typically, animal stolons are external s ...

s. The stems grow tall. The leaf blades are long and may be hairless to slightly hairy.''Paspalum vaginatum''.
Grass Manual Treatment. They are usually blue-green in color.''Paspalum vaginatum''.
USDA NRCS Plant Fact Sheet. The

panicle A panicle is a much-branched inflorescence. (softcover ). Some authors distinguish it from a compound spike inflorescence, by requiring that the flowers (and fruit) be pedicellate (having a single stem per flower). The branches of a panicle are of ...

is usually a pair of branches up to long; there is sometimes a third branch below the pair. The branches are lined with oval to lance-shaped spikelets which grow pressed against the branches, making the panicle narrow. This species is similar to

bermudagrass ''Cynodon dactylon'', commonly known as Bermuda grass, is a grass found worldwide. It is native to Europe, Africa, Australia and much of Asia. It has been introduced to the Americas. Although it is not native to Bermuda, it is an abundant invasi ...

.Brosnan, J. T. and J. Deputy
Seashore Paspalum.
Cooperative Extension,

University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa The University of Hawaii at Mānoa (University of Hawaii—Mānoa, UH Mānoa, Hawai'i, or simply UH) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Manoa, Mānoa, a neighborhood in Honolulu, Hawaii. It ...

. It spreads by its rhizomes and stolons, forming a thick

turf Sod, also known as turf, is the upper layer of soil with the grass growing on it that is often harvested into rolls. In Australian and British English, sod is more commonly known as ''turf'', and the word "sod" is limited mainly to agricult ...

.''Paspalum vaginatum''.
USDA NRCS Plant Guide. In the wild this species grows in

salt marsh A salt marsh or saltmarsh, also known as a coastal salt marsh or a tidal marsh, is a coastal ecosystem in the upper coastal intertidal zone between land and open saltwater or brackish water that is regularly flooded by the tides. It is dominated ...

es and

brackish marsh Brackish marshes develop from salt marshes where a significant freshwater influx dilutes the seawater to brackish levels of salinity. This commonly happens upstream from salt marshes by estuaries of coastal rivers or near the mouths of coastal r ...

es. The genome of ''Paspalum vaginatum'' was sequenced in 2022 and the species' haploid genome was determined to be approximately 590 megabases in size.

Uses

This grass has been bred into

cultivar A cultivar is a type of cultivated plant that people have selected for desired traits and when propagated retain those traits. Methods used to propagate cultivars include: division, root and stem cuttings, offsets, grafting, tissue culture, ...

s which are used for

golf course turf Golf course turf is the grass covering golf courses, which is used as a playing surface in the sport of golf. The grass is carefully maintained by a greenskeeper to control weeds, insects and to introduce nutrients such as nitrogen fertilization. ...

and other

landscaping Landscaping refers to any activity that modifies the visible features of an area of land, including the following: # Living elements, such as flora or fauna; or what is commonly called gardening, the art and craft of growing plants with a goal o ...

projects. It forms a higher quality turf than bermudagrass in poor conditions, such as wet soils and low light levels, and with fewer nitrogen

soil amendment A soil conditioner is a product which is added to soil to improve the soil’s physical qualities, usually its fertility (ability to provide nutrition for plants) and sometimes its mechanics. In general usage, the term "soil conditioner" is often ...

s. It can grow in lawns that receive rain on 250 days per year, and it can survive being waterlogged or submerged for several days at a time. It tolerates foot traffic. The main advantage of this grass is that it is very salt-tolerant. It can be

irrigated Irrigation (also referred to as watering) is the practice of applying controlled amounts of water to land to help grow crops, landscape plants, and lawns. Irrigation has been a key aspect of agriculture for over 5,000 years and has been devel ...

with non-potable water, such as

greywater Greywater (or grey water, sullage, also spelled gray water in the United States) refers to domestic wastewater generated in households or office buildings from streams without fecal contamination, i.e., all streams except for the wastewater from ...

, an important advantage in a time when there are increasing restrictions on water use. The grass can even be irrigated with

saltwater Saline water (more commonly known as salt water) is water that contains a high concentration of dissolved salts (mainly sodium chloride). On the United States Geological Survey (USGS) salinity scale, saline water is saltier than brackish water, ...

. The grass will be lower in quality than that irrigated with potable water, but it survives. This species has "filled a niche in America", being a better grass to use on turf next to the ocean in places that receive

sea spray Sea spray are aerosol particles formed from the ocean, mostly by ejection into Earth's atmosphere by bursting bubbles at the air-sea interface. Sea spray contains both organic matter and inorganic salts that form sea salt aerosol (SSA). SSA ha ...

. "It has the highest salt tolerance of all turfgrasses." It is also more competitive against weeds than similar grasses. Weeds can be controlled by the application of saltwater, in which weeds will die and the grass will survive.Zulkaliph, N. A., et al. (2011)
Use of saline water for weed control in seashore Paspalum (''Paspalum vaginatum'').
''Australian Journal of Crop Science'' 5 523-30. There are many cultivars bred for various uses. These cultivars are highly variable. For example, fine-textured types are used for golf courses, while coarser grass is selected for roadside revegetation. The best-known and oldest cultivar may be 'Adalayd' a grass with a similar texture and blue-green color to

Kentucky bluegrass ''Poa pratensis'', commonly known as Kentucky bluegrass (or blue grass), smooth meadow-grass, or common meadow-grass, is a perennial species of grass native to practically all of Europe, North Asia and the mountains of Algeria and Morocco. Altho ...

. The cultivar 'Aloha' is a dark green grass used for golf courses and

athletic field A pitch or a sports ground is an outdoor playing area for various sports. The term ''pitch'' is most commonly used in British English, while the comparable term in American and Canadian English is playing field or sports field. For most sports t ...

s. 'Salam', the most common cultivar in

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...

, is another dark green type suitable for golf courses. The leaves of 'Salam' are glossy on the undersides, giving the field a striped look when it is mowed. 'Seadwarf' is a bright green type that is more resistant to a grass disease called

dollar spot Dollar spot is a fungal disease of turfgrass caused by the four species in the genus ''Clarireedia'', in the family Rutstroemiaceae. The pathogen blights leaf tissues but does not affect turf grass roots or crowns. There is evidence that a fungal ...

than other cultivars. There are other uses for the grass, including

erosion Erosion is the action of surface processes (such as water flow or wind) that removes soil, rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earth's crust, and then transports it to another location where it is deposited. Erosion is distin ...

control in sandy coastal areas, its native habitat. It can be used in

phytoremediation Phytoremediation technologies use living plants to clean up soil, air and water contaminated with hazardous contaminants. It is defined as "the use of green plants and the associated microorganisms, along with proper soil amendments and agronomi ...

when the soils are high in heavy metals. It has been shown to survive pollution with

crude oil Petroleum, also known as crude oil, or simply oil, is a naturally occurring yellowish-black liquid mixture of mainly hydrocarbons, and is found in geological formations. The name ''petroleum'' covers both naturally occurring unprocessed crude ...

.Bamidele, J. F. and A. Igiri. (2011)
Growth of seashore paspalum, (''Paspalum vaginatum'' L) in soil contaminated with crude petroleum oil.
''J. Appl. Sci. Environ. Manage.'' 15(2) 303-306. It can be used to feed

livestock Livestock are the domesticated animals raised in an agricultural setting to provide labor and produce diversified products for consumption such as meat, eggs, milk, fur, leather, and wool. The term is sometimes used to refer solely to animals ...

and some wild herbivores will graze it.

Truist Park Truist Park (originally SunTrust Park) is a baseball stadium in the Atlanta metropolitan area, approximately 10 miles (16 km) northwest of downtown Atlanta in the unincorporated community of Cumberland, in Cobb County, Georgia. Opened in 2 ...

the home

ballpark A ballpark, or baseball park, is a type of sports venue where baseball is played. The playing field is divided into the infield, an area whose dimensions are rigidly defined, and the outfield, where dimensions can vary widely from place to pla ...

of the

Atlanta Braves The Atlanta Braves are an American professional baseball team based in the Atlanta metropolitan area. The Braves compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) National League East, East division. The Braves ...

has Seashore Paspalum Platinum TE as its field surface.

References

External links

USDA Plants Profile
*
NatureServe
{{Taxonbar, from=Q7142302 vaginatum Taxa named by Olof Swartz