Eleocharis halophila is a perennial

Perennial plant

A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives for more than two years. The term is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter lived annuals and biennials. The term is sometimes misused by commercial gardeners or horticulturalists to describe only herbaceous perennials...

 halophytic

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...

 plant endemic to 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...

es in eastern Canada, in Ontario in Hudson Bay

Hudson Bay

Hudson Bay , sometimes called Hudson's Bay, is a large body of saltwater in northeastern Canada. It drains a very large area, about , that includes parts of Ontario, Quebec, Saskatchewan, Alberta, most of Manitoba, southeastern Nunavut, as well as parts of North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota,...

 and James Bay

James Bay

James Bay is a large body of water on the southern end of Hudson Bay in Canada. Both bodies of water extend from the Arctic Ocean. James Bay borders the provinces of Quebec and Ontario; islands within the bay are part of Nunavut...

, Quebec in the St. Lawrence Seaway as far as the city of Quebec, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia and in the United States from Maine to North Carolina. It is one of 76 species of Eleocharis

Eleocharis

Eleocharis is a genus of 250 or more species of flowering plants in the sedge family, Cyperaceae. They are known commonly as spikerushes, although spikesedges is a more technically appropriate name and most scientists who study them in earnest refer to them as such...

amongst the 36 genera in the sedge family (Cyperaceae

Cyperaceae

Cyperaceae are a family of monocotyledonous graminoid flowering plants known as sedges, which superficially resemble grasses or rushes. The family is large, with some 5,500 species described in about 109 genera. These species are widely distributed, with the centers of diversity for the group...

). It is a vascular plant

Vascular plant

Vascular plants are those plants that have lignified tissues for conducting water, minerals, and photosynthetic products through the plant. Vascular plants include the clubmosses, Equisetum, ferns, gymnosperms and angiosperms...

 in the monocotyledon

Monocotyledon

Monocotyledons, also known as monocots, are one of two major groups of flowering plants that are traditionally recognized, the other being dicotyledons, or dicots. Monocot seedlings typically have one cotyledon , in contrast to the two cotyledons typical of dicots...

 subclass Commelinidae

Commelinidae

Commelinidae is a botanical name at the rank of subclass. Circumscription of the subclass will vary with the taxonomic system being used ; the only requirement being that it includes the family Commelinaceae...

.

Eleocharis halophila is listed as an "obligate wetland" (OBL) species, and occurs almost always (estimated probability 99%) under natural conditions in wetland

Wetland

A wetland is an area of land whose soil is saturated with water either permanently or seasonally. Wetlands are categorised by their characteristic vegetation, which is adapted to these unique soil conditions....

s.

The plant is listed by federal and state authorities as either threatened or endangered in multiple states, where it also known by various common names:

• Maryland:salt-marsh spikerush: Endangered
• New Hampshire: salt-loving spike-rush: Threatened
• New York: salt-marsh spikerush: Threatened
• North Carolina: salt spikerush: Threatened