The Great Salt Lake, located in north-western Utah, is the largest salt-water lake in the western hemisphere. Minerals deposited from the streams and rivers that empty into the lake, which has no outlet, get trapped and concentrated over time. In this unique chemical makeup of soil around the lake, only a few plant species can survive. The "Great Salt Lake Playa Foodweb Project," conducted by students and professors in the Biology Department at Westminster College in Salt Lake City, has identified three of the most common plants found around the Great Salt Lake.
Allenrolfea occidentalis is the scientific name for a plant also called iodine bush, bush pickleweed and kern greasewood. These nicknames may be derived from the brown color that emerges when its leaves are crushed or due to its salty, bitter, iodine-like flavor. It is one of the most common plants in the saline conditions of the Great Salt Lake. The shrub grows between 30 cm to 1 m high, and it has succulent, gray-green, jointed stems that grow from a woody root. Animals do not graze on this salty plant but they do eat its seeds.
Distichlis spicata var. stricta is the scientific name for saltgrass. The plant may be found in more moist areas of the Great Salt Lake such as salt marshes. According to Shazia A. Arshad, a contributor to the "Great Salt Lake Playa Foodweb Project", "this grass has straight, vertical stems with leaves tapering to sharp points and arranged in two opposite rows." Saltgrass has both male and female plants, reaching from 4 to 6 inches long, and it reproduces asexually. The plant is a food source for birds and shelter for insects of the Great Salt Lake area.
Salicornia europeae variety rubra is the scientific name for pickleweed, a halophilic, or salt loving, plant that grows in saltwater marshes. Since the pickleweed appears to have no leaves, it is often called the "cactus" of the Great Salt Lake. However, its stem is surrounded by leaf tissue that allows for the plant to process the high amounts of salt found in its environment. At the end of the summer season, young pickleweed plants will produce blooms of six flowers at the end of each node on their stems. As days grow cooler, the plant will turn a bright-red color. Seed-eating birds and small mammals feed on the seeds produced by the pickleweed.
