Plant · P-325

Samphire

Salicornia europaea

Samphire, also called glasswort, is a succulent salt-marsh annual eaten as a briny potherb - young stems have a pleasant salty crunch raw or cooked, and the seed presses into a high-protein oil similar in quality to safflower oil. It only grows in salty, regularly wetted ground near tidal water, and contrary to the usual picture of a plant that survives on nothing, it actually wants rich, fertile, well-fed soil that just happens to carry a salt load. Its ash, historically burned for the potash it's rich in, was once a source material for soap and glass - which is where the "glasswort" name comes from.