Suaeda is a genus of plants also known as seepweeds[1] and sea-blites. Most species are confined to saline or alkaline soil habitats, such as coastal salt-flats and tidal wetlands. Many species have thick, succulent leaves, a characteristic seen in various plant genera that thrive in salty habitats (halophile plants).
The most common species in northwestern Europe is S. maritima. It grows along the coasts, especially in saltmarsh areas, and is known in Britain as "common sea-blite", but as "herbaceous seepweed" in the USA. It is also common along the east coast of North America from Virginia northward. One of its varieties is common in tropical Asia on the land-side edge of mangrove tidal swamps. Another variety of this polymorphic species is common in tidal zones all around Australia (Suaeda maritima var. australis is also classed as S. australis). On the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea a common Suaeda species is S. vera. This is known as "shrubby sea-blite" in English. It grows taller and forms a bush.
The name Suaeda comes from an oral (non-literary) Arabic name suaed/sawād/suēd [3] for the Suaeda vera species and it was assigned as the genus name by the 18th century taxonomist Peter Forsskål during his visit to the Red Sea area in the early 1760s.[2][4] Forsskål's book, Flora Aegyptiaco-Arabica, published 1775, in Latin, declares Suæda as a newly created genus name, with the name taken from an Arabic name Suæd and presents the species members of the new genus.[5]
The genus includes plants using either C3 or C4 carbon fixation. The latter pathway evolved independently three times in the genus and is now used by around 40 species. S. aralocaspica, classified in its own section Borszczowia, uses a particular type of C4 photosynthesis without the typical "Kranz" leaf anatomy.[6][7][8]
In the medieval and early post-medieval centuries it was harvested and burned, and the ashes were processed as a source for sodium carbonate for use in glass-making; see glasswort. In Mexico, some species such as Suaeda pulvinata, called romeritos, are cooked in traditional festive dish named either revoltijo or romeritos, also as other kinds of quelites a generic name for edible herbs part of the polyculture eco-agronomy technology called milpa.