546 SOILS. 



cosmopolitan plant, occurring, as its name indicates, on the 

 Ionian Islands, as well as in North Africa, Syria, and other 

 arid countries of the world. 



SALT-GRASS, Distichlis spicata. This grass is of world 

 wide distribution, and always indicates a sensible content of 

 soluble salts, without apparently any special preference for 

 either of the three most commonly occurring ones. Its maxi- 

 mum tolerance, as will be seen by the preceding table, is very 

 high, yet at the same time it w r ill grow luxuriantly on lands 

 containing so little that other saline plants like the samphires, 

 saltwort or greasewood will refuse to grow. On the shores of 



< FIG. 88, Cressa Cressa cretica truxillensis, Choisy. 



Honey Lake, California, it may often be seen incrusted with 

 the salts of the water concentrated by a long season of 

 drought, yet maintaining life, though somewhat stunted. On 

 lands lightly impregnated, stock will often eat it quite freely, 

 so that it has been mistaken for Bermuda grass, to which its 

 habit and foliage bears some resemblance. But Bermuda 

 grass, while not as sensitive to alkali as most forage grasses, 

 will probably not bear much over 12,000 pounds per acre. 



The mere presence of the salt grass cannot therefore be 

 taken as a definite indication of anything more than that there 

 is an unusual amount of salts in the soil ; whether or not there 



