Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Any of several plants of the genus Salsola, native to Eurasia and widely naturalized elsewhere, having stiff, prickly leaves and growing on seashores and in semiarid areas.
  • noun A low-growing succulent shrub (Batis maritima) native to warm coastal regions of the Americas, having small yellow flowers and thick aromatic leaves.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A name of several maritime plants, particularly the alkaline plants Salsola Kali (also called prickly glasswort) and S. oppositifolia: applied also to the glassworts Salicornia. The two genera are alike in habit and uses. See alkali and glasswort.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Bot.) A name given to several plants which grow on the seashore, as the Batis maritima, and the glasswort. See glasswort.
  • noun the sea milkwort.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Batis maritima, a plant distributed in the southwestern United States, Caribbean, and South America in coastal saltmarshes.
  • noun Glaux maritima, a plant in the primrose family (Primulaceae) and which grows along coasts throughout the temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun bushy plant of Old World salt marshes and sea beaches having prickly leaves; burned to produce a crude soda ash
  • noun low-growing strong-smelling coastal shrub of warm parts of the New World having unisexual flowers in conelike spikes and thick succulent leaves

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From salt + wort ("plant").

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Examples

  • Glasswort, saltwort, salt grasses and oxeye are other salt-tolerant plants that exist in and around the marsh.

    Sapelo Island National Estuarine Research Reserve, Georgia 2008

  • Above the Spartina-dominated community are found several succulents, including pickleweed and saltwort.

    Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve, California 2008

  • Large areas on the alluvial saline plains are characterized by halophytic plant communities including Artemisia pauciflora, A. schrenkiana, A. nitrosa and perennial saltwort (Atriplex cana, Anabasis salsa, and Camphorosma monspeliaca).

    Kazakh semi-desert 2008

  • Other common salt marsh plants include black rush, saltwort, marsh lavender and marsh elder.

    Narragansett Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, Rhode Island 2007

  • It appeared that the saltwort plants, which were numerous, were not only efficacious in keeping the cattle that fed on them in the best possible condition; but as wholly preventing cattle and sheep from licking clay, a vicious habit to which they are so prone, that grassy runs in the higher country nearer Sydney are sometimes abandoned only on account of the “licking holes” they contain.

    Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia 2003

  • The roots and stems of saltwort (Basis maritima) were used as food by the Seri Indians in the southwestern United States.

    Chapter 7 1990

  • Common Indian saltwort (Suaeda maritima) occurs in saline soils along the eastern and western coasts of India.

    Chapter 7 1990

  • _Barilla_, a rich potassic manure prepared by burning certain strand plants, especially the saltwort, was also in the past largely exported from Sicily and Spain.

    Manures and the principles of manuring Charles Morton Aikman

  • The other principal productions of the colony are a species of salsola, or saltwort, called by the natives canna, which affords potash for the soap which is manufactured for domestic use; salt, which is obtained by mere evaporation from numerous lakes; and aloes, natural plantations of which cover a large tract of ground.

    Three Weeks in the Downs, or Conjugal Fidelity Rewarded: exemplified in the Narrative of Helen and Edmund Anonymous 1829

  • It appeared that the saltwort plants, which were numerous, were not only efficacious in keeping the cattle that fed on them in the best possible condition; but as wholly preventing cattle and sheep from licking clay, a vicious habit to which they are so prone, that grassy runs in the higher country nearer Sydney are sometimes abandoned only on account of the

    Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia Thomas Mitchell 1823

Comments

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  • "'I cannot tell you, Maturin, how happy I am to be lying here on the saltwort in the sun, watching that oyster-catcher through my glass.'"

    --Patrick O'Brian, The Nutmeg of Consolation, 348

    March 9, 2008

  • A traditional Japanese culinary herb. Young shoots can be added to salads, sushi, used as a garnish; older shoots can be blanched or steamed for use as a potherb.

    February 17, 2011