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Crithmum maritimum
Also called Sea fennel, Rock samphire
Rock samphire (Crithmum maritimum) is a fleshy, hairless perennial of sea cliffs and shingle, grown in gardens for its edible leaves. It needs sharp drainage and full sun, and it dislikes wet roots.
Crithmum is a monospecific genus of flowering plants in the carrot family, Apiaceae. It currently consists of just one species, Crithmum maritimum, but when it was originally published by Linnaeus (in Species Plantarum vol. 1, p. 246) he included two species. The other, listed as C. pyrenaicum, is now called Libanotis pyrenaica or Seseli libanotis.
Modern accounts usually separate rock samphire into a separate genus. It is distinguished from Seseli (Libanotis) by the yellow (not white) flowers and from Silaum by its fleshy leaves and four (not 0-3) bracts.
Rock samphire occurs on coastlines throughout much of Europe north to the British Isles and southern Scandinavia, Macaronesia, parts of West Asia and North Africa. It is also naturalised some places in the USA, including Monterey Bay in California, and along the coast of New South Wales, where it grows on sand, shingle and rocky cliffs.
In Britain, rock samphire is sometimes cultivated in gardens, where it grows readily in a light, rich soil. The leaves were described by Culpeper as having a "pleasant, hot and spicy taste". Stems and leaves should be washed and cooked, while the stems, leaves and young seed pods can be pickled, perhaps in salted and spiced vinegar. The fresh leaves may be used in salads. Dried and ground sea fennel can also be used as a salt substitute.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Crithmum 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.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
