Salicornia depressa
Salicornia rubra
American glasswort, common glasswort, low saltwort, maritime glasswort, slender grasswort, Virginia glasswort
red glasswort, red glasswort saltwort, red pickleweed, red saltwort, red swampfire, Rocky Mountain glasswort
erect, green, only occasionally developing some red or purple, usually with primary and some secondary branches, 10–70 cm, ultimate branches often long and cylindric;
leaf and bract apices usually obtuse, not mucronate.
usually erect, green with red or purple at base and apex of segments and around flowers, often becoming completely red in fruit, simple or with primary and secondary branches, more elaborately branched if damaged, (1–)5–25 cm, ultimate branches usually short;
leaf and bract apices obtuse to subacute, not mucronate.
cylindric, 2–8 cm, with 5–25 fertile segments;
bracts covering only base of cymes.
weakly torulose, 0.5–3(–5) cm, with 4–10(–19) fertile segments;
bracts covering only base of cymes.
segments (2d–4th in main spikes) ± cylindric, 3.2–7.6 × 2.4–5 mm, usually longer than wide, margins 0.3–0.4 mm wide, scarious.
segments (2d–4th in main spikes) 2.1–4.4 × 1.8–3.2 mm, about as long as wide or slightly longer, widest distally, margins (0.1–)0.2–0.3(–0.4) mm wide, scarious.
flowers oval or rhombic to semicircular distally, 1.7–3.5 × 1.4–2.7 mm, usually longer than wide, usually not conspicuously larger than lateral flowers, usually not reaching distal edge of segment;
anthers always exserted, 0.3–0.5 mm, dehiscing after exsertion.
flowers usually semicircular distally, 1.1–2.2 × 1–1.7 mm, about as long as wide or a little longer, usually not or scarcely larger than lateral flowers;
anthers commonly not exserted, (0.2–)0.3–0.4 mm, usually dehiscing within flowers.
= 36.
= 18.
Salicornia depressa
Salicornia rubra
Salicornia depressa is the common and widespread species in coastal areas of North America. No detailed taxonomic investigation of the tetraploid populations has ever been undertaken in North America. It is possible that a number of different taxa exist; the Pacific Coast populations in particular seem distinct from those of the Atlantic Coast.
This species has generally been called Salicornia europaea by North American authors, but that name refers to a diploid European species that does not occur in North America.
The earliest name that is probably referable to this species is Salicornia virginica Linnaeus, which must be typified by specimens collected by John Clayton probably from Virginia. The specimens are sterile but clearly annual, as indicated by Linnaeus in the protologue. The name was applied to an annual species by P. C. Standley (1916), but subsequently came to be misapplied to the perennial species of the east coast now treated in Sarcocornia.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Salicornia rubra has been introduced into Quebec and Michigan. Populations of S. rubra from Hudson Bay, growing above mean high water in saltmarshes and estuaries in the vicinity of Churchill, Manitoba, have been described as a distinct species, S. borealis, but they are now known from several localities in N. Ontario and Yukon. They are on average smaller in all their parts than typical S. rubra, but they fall within the lower limits of the range of variation for that species. These populations possess one apparently unique feature in that many of the plants branch at the cotyledonary node, a characteristic not known from other North American populations of Salicornia.
Salicornia rubra is very similar to the Eurasian species S. prostrata Pallas, which occurs in very similar inland habitats. No direct comparison of these two species has been possible and it is not at all clear how they differ from each other.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
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