Distichlis bajaensis is a rare species of grass

Poaceae

The Poaceae is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of flowering plants. Members of this family are commonly called grasses, although the term "grass" is also applied to plants that are not in the Poaceae lineage, including the rushes and sedges...

 known by the common name Baja grass.

Distribution

Distichlis bajaensis is endemic to Baja California

Baja California

Baja California officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Baja California is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is both the northernmost and westernmost state of Mexico. Before becoming a state in 1953, the area was known as the North...

, Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

, where it is known from only one location in a salt marsh

Salt marsh

A salt marsh is an environment in the upper coastal intertidal zone between land and salt water or brackish water, it is dominated by dense stands of halophytic plants such as herbs, grasses, or low shrubs. These plants are terrestrial in origin and are essential to the stability of the salt marsh...

 just outside of Rosarito. The habitat is an arroyo

Arroyo (creek)

An arroyo , a Spanish word translated as brook, and also called a wash is usually a dry creek or stream bed—gulch that temporarily or seasonally fills and flows after sufficient rain. Wadi is a similar term in Africa. In Spain, a rambla has a similar meaning to arroyo.-Types and processes:Arroyos...

 with saline and alkaline soils

Alkali soils

Alkali, or alkaline, soils are clay soils with high pH , a poor soil structure and a low infiltration capacity. Often they have a hard calcareous layer at 0.5 to 1 metre depth. Alkali soils owe their unfavorable physico-chemical properties mainly to the dominating presence of sodium carbonate...

 which is grazed by goat

Goat

The domestic goat is a subspecies of goat domesticated from the wild goat of southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the Bovidae family and is closely related to the sheep as both are in the goat-antelope subfamily Caprinae. There are over three hundred distinct breeds of...

s and burro

Burro

The burro is a small donkey used primarily as a pack animal. In addition, significant numbers of feral burros live in the Southwestern United States, where they are protected by law, and in Mexico...

s.

The grass grows alongside other halophyte

Halophyte

A halophyte is a plant that grows where it is affected by salinity in the root area or by salt spray, such as in saline semi-deserts, mangrove swamps, marshes and sloughs, and seashores. An example of a halophyte is the salt marsh grass Spartina alterniflora . Relatively few plant species are...

s including spiny rush

Juncus acutus

Juncus actus or spiny rush, sharp rush or sharp-pointed rush is of the monocot family Juncaceae and genus Juncus. It grows in salt marshesand on dunesand is reliable for reducing erosion rates...

 (Juncus acutus), iodinebush

Allenrolfea

Allenrolfea is a monotypic plant genus containing the single species Allenrolfea occidentalis, the iodinebush. This is a low-lying shrub of the Southwestern United States, California, Idaho, and northern Mexico....

 (Allenrolfea occidentalis), and pickleweed (Salicornia sp.). Genetic

Genetic analysis

Genetic analysis can be used generally to describe methods both used in and resulting from the sciences of genetics and molecular biology, or to applications resulting from this research....

 and morphological

Morphology (biology)

In biology, morphology is a branch of bioscience dealing with the study of the form and structure of organisms and their specific structural features....

 analyses show that the plant is not any other Distichlis, nor a hybrid of the two most closely related Distichlis, and it was described to science as a new species in 2010.

Description

Distichlis bajaensis is a rhizomatous

Rhizome

In botany and dendrology, a rhizome is a characteristically horizontal stem of a plant that is usually found underground, often sending out roots and shoots from its nodes...

 perennial grass growing in short clumps and spreading via stolons. The leaf blades are no more than 1.5 centimeters long and are slightly bent; this bend is a good characteristic for identifying this grass in the field. Like other Distichlis, Baja grass is dioecious

Plant sexuality

Plant sexuality covers the wide variety of sexual reproduction systems found across the plant kingdom. This article describes morphological aspects of sexual reproduction of plants....

, with male and female inflorescence

Inflorescence

An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Strictly, it is the part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed and which is accordingly modified...

s; only the male inflorescence has been included in the official description because no good female specimens have been collected.