Palmbract Bird'S-Beak

Description

Chloropyron palmatum is an annual herb growing 10 to 30 centimeters tall. It is gray-green in color, glandular, and coated with hairs. It is often encrusted with salt crystals it has excreted. The sparse leaves are oblong and sometimes have lobes along the edges. The inflorescence is a dense columnar spike of flowers up to 15 centimeters long. The bracts surrounding the flowers are leaflike and palmate in shape, with several lobes. Each flower is up to 2 centimeters long and has a fuzzy white pouch, sometimes tinted purple, enclosed in darker sepals.