Annual seablite (Suaeda maritime) grows on seashores and in
salt marshes around the British coast. It is a halophyte pant, which means that
it can tolerate being immersed in seawater, which happens twice a day as the
tides rise and fall.
Annual seablite is actually a plant that does not just
tolerate a high salt environment – it needs it in order to survive. However, it
also needs a well aerated soil and usually grows on sandy seashores.
The name blite is an old word derived from the Latin for
spinach. The plant was used by medieval herbalists, and also for the making of
an inferior type of glass – the plants, when burned, yield an impure form of
sodium carbonate.
The plant stems either sprawl along the ground or grow
upright, the maximum height being around 12 inches (30 centimetres). The stems
have a reddish tinge; the leaves are fleshy and stalkless.
The flowers, which appear from July to September, grow in
the junction of leaf and stem and consist of a single whorl of sepal-like
segments.
© John Welford
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