Plant · P-328

Common Purslane Golden

Portulaca oleracea subsp sativa

Purslane is a low, succulent salad green that keeps producing through the hottest, driest weeks of summer on almost no water, thanks to a photosynthesis trick that lets it handle heat, drought and salt together rather than one at a time. The tangy, mucilaginous leaves and stems are eaten raw or cooked, ready to cut six to eight weeks after sowing and then continuously all summer. It also spreads into a low mat that shades bare soil the way mulch does, except this mulch is also lunch. Left alone it self-sows freely and becomes a permanent volunteer wherever the ground is open and sunny.