Salicornia

Salicornia
Salicornia europaea
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
(unranked):	Angiosperms
(unranked):	Eudicots
(unranked):	Core eudicots
Order:	Caryophyllales
Family:	Amaranthaceae
Subfamily:	Salicornioideae
Genus:	Salicornia L.
Species
See text.

See text.

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, and marsh samphire; these common names are also used for some species not in Salicornia. 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. Many species are green, but their foliage turns red in autumn.

All stems are terminating in spike-like apparently jointed inflorescences. Each joint consists of two opposite minute bracts with an (1-) 3-flowered cyme tightly embedded in cavities of the main axis and partly hidden by the bracts. The flowers are arranged in a triangle, both lateral flowers beneath the central flower. The hermaphrodite flowers are more or less radially symmetric, with a perianth of three fleshy tepals connate nearly to the apex. There are 1-2 stamens and an ovary with two stigmas.

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