In the swamp this afternoon seeing how the cattails and a few others edibles are coming along and decided to continue over the dyke into the salt marsh. Here in the photo is a plant with tasty edible leaves known as Orache, this is the most common Atriplex in this marsh and its leaves will start to shrink as it stretches upwards in the warmer weather, so now is a good time to gather a few.
Another look at its spear shaped leaf.
Some other animal has been walking over the dyke and has found and nibbled on these nice tender seaside plantain (Plantago martima), known locally as goose-tongue and passé-pierre.
In the marsh’s taller grass the seaside plantain had long slender succulent leaves over a foot long, harder to see and more difficult to graze as many other plants with similar leaves were well mixed in with them, I needed to check twice on some of them, here they are laying on some dried grass with a couple of orache sprouts in view. I think I’ll sit here for a bit and them home to steam some greens.
I will keep an eye out for the plantain – very unlike our dry land plantain. Nice post!
There is a record for it in northern Ontario near Winisk, you may though find some along salt water springs which run into fresh water, if any occur in your area. Here this plant grows in many bare soil types, salt marsh, clay, loam and rocky banks as long as it is receives occasional salt water from flooding or salt spray from the strong coastal winds which can carry saltiness a fair distance. These plants usually grow flat so yesterday was surprising to find some competing in the tall grass and growing more upright like their neighbors.
Thank you for that info. I don’t think there are any salt water springs near here, but always interesting to learn more about what’s out there.
Do you know the Atriplex species name? This looks very much like the one I am trying to ID from Lincoln County, Oregon.
Hi Stacy, I can only guess on this one, a variation of Atriplex patula seems reasonable but which var. as in my area we have quite a few to choose from. I think the only A patula var. which grows commonly on both the east & west coast would be var. subspicata so possibly this is what we both are encountering or something very similar to it?