Sea purslane

Atriplex portulacoides (also placed in Halimione), the sea purslane, is a low, much-branched, somewhat woody perennial subshrub of the amaranth family, typically forming spreading mats or low bushes 20 to 80 cm high on coastal salt marshes. The whole plant has a greyish, mealy, silver-scaled appearance from a dense covering of bladder-like hairs that help it tolerate salt. The opposite, fleshy, oblong to elliptic leaves are entire and slightly succulent. Small, petalless, yellowish flowers are crowded in slender, interrupted, spike-like clusters at the ends of the branches, the male and female flowers separate but on the same plant. The fruit is enclosed by characteristic three-lobed, stalkless bracteoles. It grows along the muddy upper and middle zones of salt marshes and tidal creeks on Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts of Europe, North Africa, and western Asia.