Some similarities to : Glasswort. From a distance Annual Sea-blite could be mistaken for Glasswort 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).

It is a succulent Facultative Halophyte (a halophyte which is dependant upon a strong source of salt in order to germinate) occupying the upper parts of salt-marshes which don't get inundated with sea water with every tide. The flowers on the plants are a mixture of bisexual and female-only. In Autumn the plants turn purplish-red. It is an annual and grows only where it has access to salt, usually the upper reaches of salt-marshes, but like English Stonecrop (Sedum anglicum), can also be found growing along some roads that are frequently gritted with rock-salt.

In response to slightly differing environmental conditions, Annual Sea-blite exhibits high phenotype plasticity (morphologically differing forms) of the plant in differing areas in a salt-marsh, depending on how high up or low down the salt-marsh it finds itself growing. This is an important adaptive mechanism which allows the plant to survive in differing salt concentrations.

Annual Sea-blite is also a Metallophyte, able to sequester metals, the concentrations of which are higher in the roots than in the leaves with the exception of zinc where this is reversed. Able to perform metal chelating it has potential to be used in the phytoremediation of soils heavily contaminated by heavy metals.