Some similarities to : Some other Glassworts and Samphires and also to Annual Sea-blite. From a distance Glasswort could be mistaken for Annual Sea-blite because it is much the same height, grows in much the same kind of places, and looks similar in that it is glaucous, and has a 'Wild West cactus' look about it (apart from the huge size difference).

No relation to : Rock Samphire [a plant with similar common name] which belongs to the Carrot Family [Apiaceaea or Umbellifereae]

Those who call it 'Poor Man's Asparagus' must not have seen the exorbitant prices some vendors charge for it (although you could collect it yourself for free if you lived in an appropriate place). But the seas are getting rougher as the decades go by and it is being washed off the beaches by great landward-wind storms whipping up large waves.

Not to be confused with: Asparagus nor with 'Poor Man's Weatherglass' [a plant with similar nickname].

Has yellow flowers so small that, when present, they look like grains of sand. Common Glasswort is edible raw, if crispy and very salty. It can also be cooked like asparagus.

Being in the sea, glasswort species contain a lot of salt dissolved in their internal fluids. If they contained only pure water, without the salt, osmotosis would soon dry the plants out. Because of it's high sodium content, glasswort was once used in the making of glass, hence the name glasswort. The glasswort was dried, then burnt in great heaps, reducing it to ashes, containing a lot of salt. The ash was heated with sand (itself plentiful where glasswort typically grows) until the sand and ash fused into a crude glass.

Another use for the high salt-content ash obtained by burning glasswort is in the making of caustic soda. The ash was leached with limewater producing a solution of caustic soda. The caustic soda so produced was evaporated into crystals of sodium hydroxide, NaOH, mixed and heated with animal fats so producing soap. However, glasswort is not another name for Soapwort, a totally different plant.

The green shoots of Glasswort can be eaten raw, like a crunchy snack, when it has a very salty taste. Or it can be boiled in water where some of its salt leaches out. It is served with butter like asparagus.

Glassworts are a very difficult group to identify; taxonomists argue amongst themselves firstly about how many different ones there are in the UK, some say over 20 or 30, others say just 3. So it is not your Authors' job to argue with any; but your Author is all for simplicity, and will happily go along with only 3 :-). Clive Stace lists just 7 in his latest tomb , 'New Flora of the British Isles' Edition 4.

There isn't a single Glasswort amongst these 7 which does not have a Clive Stace rarity label, [R], [RR] or [RRR].