​Rock Samphire

​Stranger on the Shore

Herbs (Journal of the Herbs Society) March 2016

Pity the plant that’s lost its former fame; pity the plant that’s even lost its name.  For most people ‘samphire’ is the green, crunchy shoots nowadays offered on fish-stall counters.
​    However, this salty tasting marsh samphire (Salicornia europaea) can be seen as something of an interloper ...
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Rock Samphire: Stranger on the Shore.
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Crithmum maritimum
Zorn's Icones Plantarum Medicinalium
Amsterdam, 1796. 
© Florilegius / The Trustees of the Natural History Museum, London.

Crithmum maritimum
Linnean herbarium 
Department of Phanerogamic Botany 
Swedish Museum of Natural History 
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​Rob Dover’s neighbouring cleeves of samphyre, to excite his dull and sickly taste, and stir up appetite.
 
Poly-Olbion, Micheal Drayton, 1612
(​cleeves = cliffes)
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The thin leaves of samphire can shrug off the waves when they reach above the high-tide line, as in a storm. 

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