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Batis
Also called Beachwort, Pickleweed, Saltwort, Vascular Plants, Tracheophytes
Batis, or turtleweed, is a genus of two salt-tolerant evergreen shrubs from coastal salt marshes, the only genus in its family Bataceae. Its key to growing is wet, salty, sandy or muddy ground in full sun.
Batis (turtleweed, saltwort, beachwort, or pickleweed) is a genus of two species of flowering plants, the only genus in the family Bataceae. They are halophytic (salt tolerant) plants, native to the coastal salt marshes of warm temperate and tropical America (B. maritima) and tropical Australasia (B. argillicola).
Batis has the ability to live in salty environments. When other plants are exposed to salty soil or water, they lose most of their stored water, but Batis has adapted to this environment and does not have these problems. To help it survive in this salty habitat, its fleshy leaves are covered with very fine hairs that reduce the amount of water the plant loses to the air.
Batis maritima was used by Native Americans as a food, the roots were chewed (like sugar cane) or boiled into a beverage, while the stems and leaves were eaten raw, cooked or pickled. B. argillicola is also eaten as a green vegetable.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Batis (plant) by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
