Salicornia

Description

Salicornia is a genus of succulent, halophyte (salt tolerant) flowering plants in the family Amaranthaceae that grow in salt marshes, on beaches, and among mangroves. Salicornia species are native to North America, Europe, South Africa, and South Asia. Common names for the genus include glasswort, pickleweed, picklegrass, and marsh samphire; these common names are also used for some species not in Salicornia. To French speakers in Atlantic Canada, they are known, colloquially, as "titines de souris" (mouse tits). The main European species is often eaten, called marsh samphire in Britain, and the main North American species is occasionally sold in grocery stores or appears on restaurant menus, usually as 'sea beans' or samphire greens or sea asparagus . The Salicornia species are small annual herbs. They grow prostrate to erect, their simple or branched stems are succulent, glabrous, and apparently jointed. Older stems may be somewhat woody basally. The opposite leaves are fleshy, glabrous, sessile, basally connate and decurrent and enclosing the stem (thus forming the joints). The leaf blades are reduced to small collar-like scales with narrow scarious margin.[2] Many species are green, but their foliage turns red in autumn.