Plants of South Eastern New South Wales

Sarcocornia quinqueflora subsp. quinqueflora

Flowering stems. Australian Plant Image Index, photographer Murray Fagg, Bega River near Tathra

Flowering stems. Photographer Don Wood, Hanging Rock Creek, Batehaven, south of Batemans Bay

Plants. Photographer Chris Clarke, near Portland, Vic, at the top of a cliff

Common name

 Samphire, Glasswort

Family

Chenopodiaceae

Where found

Saltmarshes. Frequently in habitats periodically inundated by salt water. Coastal.

Notes

Perennial herb, rarely shrubby, to 0.5 m high, usually sprawling, rooting at the nodes. Swollen, fleshy, jointed branches about 5 mm wide. Leaves reduced to membranous lobes, opposite each other. Flowers bisexual, but occasionally functionally unisexual. Flowers small, fleshy, with 3 fused lobes, at the base of paired, fused, fleshy bracts. Flowers in 10–18-flowered clusters, in false whorls arranged in a single row.

Salicornia quinqueflora in Vic.

PlantNET description:  http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Sarcocornia~quinqueflora (accessed 6 February, 2021)