Marsh Samphire / Salicornia europaea

You aren’t going to come back from a foraging mission for Marsh Samphire without risking muddy feet – it grows in the rich mud of estuaries and salt marshes, almost exclusively in the intertidal zone just below the MHW mark. It is found all around the coast of the UK – although scarcely seen on rocky, sandy or exposed shores. The edges of creeks and smaller rivers that merge into gently lapping waves are always worth investigating. I have found it almost exclusively in the intertidal zone (the area of beach/shore exposed at low tide, but covered twice a day by water), although I have occasionally found lonely examples trying to survive well above the waterline. Marsh Samphire is a halophyte, a plant that thrives in saline conditions. The cells of the plant contain a solution of sodium salts that is strong enough to overcome the osmotic pressure of the seawater that surrounds it at high tide. In East Anglia it has been prized as a local delicacy, and often sold alongside fresh fish and other seafoods, and has also been used as source of salt for the glassmaking industry – hence the alternative name of ‘Glasswort’. Piles of the plant were burned and then the ash mixed in with sand to make a soda-based (rather than potash-based) glass. It is claimed that there was ‘no English word’ for the plant prior to the arrival of Venetian glassmakers to England around 4-500 years ago. In Lancashire Marsh Samphire has been traditionally pickled, as it has in most populated coastal areas of the UK. You will also find bundles of Samphire for sale in supermarkets, either on the fish counter or packaged in plastic. These are cultivated species, often grown indoors or in climate-controlled conditions far from the sea.