Sarcocornia tegetaria

Sarcocornia tegetaria, sometimes called the carpet glasswort, is a perennial shrub or subshrub, a halophyte reaching heights around 20 cm. A halophyte is a plant that thrives in salty environments like beach marshes, mangroves, and wet coastal areas. The generic name of this plant may have changed to Salicornia, but SANBI does not use it (yet).

Sarcocornia flowers grow in spike-like thyrses at stem-tips. The minute flowers have three-lobed perianths, bisexual in some species, dioecious in others.

The species distribution is coastal in many estuaries of the coastal provinces of South Africa. The photo was taken at the Bot River Estuary.

The habitat is the intertidal zones of estuaries, salt marshes and seagrass bed wetlands. These areas, and the resident plants may regularly be flooded by salt water, even for long periods. The habitat population is deemed of least concern early in the twenty first century (Leistner, (Ed.), 2000; iNaturalist; https://enews.saeon.ac.za; http://redlist.sanbi.org).