General: Annual herb from a fibrous root; stems decumbent to erect, solitary, simple to freely branched, 10-25 cm tall/long, glabrous, fleshy, often reddish with age.
Leaves: Stem leaves reduced to opposite, scalelike, fused bracts; lower scales slightly spreading, obtuse to rounded.
Flowers: Inflorescence of fleshy spikes, the flowers sunken in depressions of the joints just above the axils and opposite the fused bracts, the joints of the spike mostly 2 (rarely 2.5) mm long and as thick, or almost as thick as the spikes; flowers in groups of 3, central flowers in each cluster much exceeding the lateral ones; spikes 2-5 cm long.
Fruits: Thin, papery-walled, membranous bladders enclosed by spongy flower scales, egg-shaped to diamond-shaped; seeds 1 per bladder.
Refer to the treatment in Flora North America for a key to glassworts, and further descriptive information.
Habitat / Range
Wet salt marshes, shorelines and saline and alkaline flats in the lowland, steppe and montane zones; infrequent in S BC; N to AK, YT and NT, E to NF and S to GA, KS, NV and CA.
The table below shows the species-specific information calculated from original data (BEC database) provided by the BC Ministry of Forests and Range. (Updated August, 2013)
