The open plant encyclopedia
Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.
The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.
Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.
Salicornia europaea
Marsh samphire, a succulent annual that grows on salt marshes and coasts. It thrives in full sun with saline or salty moisture, which is the key to growing it.
Salicornia europaea, known as marsh samphire, common glasswort or just glasswort, is a halophytic annual dicot flowering plant. Other common names include pickle weed, saltwort, and chicken toe (due to the shape). It is a succulent plant with high water content, accounting for its slightly translucent look (the source of the name 'glasswort'). It is found near saline water in Europe and is edible both raw and cooked.
Salicornia prefers a light, sandy soil (or a well-drained soil) and a sunny position. Samphire can be planted out once the danger of frosts is past. Salicornia is best watered with a saline solution of 1 teaspoon of sea salt in 1 imp pt (0.57 L) of water. Salicornia grow best in 200 mM NaCl.
In the Northern Hemisphere, the harvesting of samphire shoots takes place from June to August. After that time shoots will become woody. Samphire should be treated as a slow-growing cut-and-come-again crop, with a month elapsing between each cut.
It is found on most coastlines in Europe.
The ashes of glasswort and saltwort plants (barilla) and of kelp were long used as a source of soda ash (mainly sodium carbonate) for glassmaking and soapmaking. The introduction of the Leblanc process for the industrial production of soda ash in the first half of the 19th century superseded the use of plant sources.
Dwarf saltwort · Beaded Glasswort · Red swampfire · Virginia Glasswort · Glasswort · Salicornia blackiana · Salicornia fruticosa · Salicornia pacifica · Glasswort
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Salicornia europaea 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.
