Thinopyrum acutum

Thinopyrum acutum is a rhizomatous perennial grass in the Poaceae family native to coastal and inland saline habitats across Europe and Turkey, including the Mediterranean, Atlantic and Black Sea coastlines as well as scattered inland salt-influenced sites. It is widely regarded as a stabilised hybrid derivative within the Thinopyrum complex, intermediate between Thinopyrum junceum and other beach wheatgrasses, and is sometimes listed under the synonym Elytrigia acuta. The plant grows in coastal sand dunes, brackish marsh edges, salt-affected grasslands and disturbed saline ground, where its creeping rhizomes contribute to sand binding. It produces erect, rigid culms 30 to 100 centimetres tall arising from extensive underground rhizomes. The leaf blades are linear, stiff, blue-green to glaucous, 10 to 30 centimetres long and 2 to 5 millimetres wide, often inrolled and with prominent ribs on the upper surface; ligules are short and membranous and the auricles small. The inflorescence is a slender, erect, narrow spike 6 to 20 centimetres long, with solitary, sessile spikelets borne broadside on flattened sides of a tough rachis; each spikelet has five to ten florets enclosed by stiff, several-nerved glumes and lemmas that are usually awnless or merely mucronate. The grain is a narrow caryopsis.