The first week of June (02/06)

The salt mash has not gotten in the full spring mode yet. It’s been a long and (relatively) harsh winter. The marsh is a checkerboard of fresh spring greens and drab winter browns and grays. The little annual glasswart or Salicornia plant is struggling though the last year stubble. 

 Despite its small size, Salicornia is a cool plant: it is called halophyte because this glasswart grows in high salt environments. The plant is not only edible, but highly nutritious containing up to 33% salicornia oil, which is similar to safflower oil. People used to eat it in the past. Nowadays, Salicornia is grown in deserts and wastelands where freshwater is scarce but salt or brackish water is abundant, for high quality animal feed and also biofuel.

At the first glance, nothing is in common between Salicornia glasswart and the shore fly. But there is more to it that meets the eye. Shore flies (Ephydra spp.) are also halophytes well adapted to saline environments, and are among the most common insects on the salt marshes. 

The larvae of one species, Ephydra riparia, inhabiting the Great Salt Lake in Utah were consumed as food by local Native Americans. Since shore flies are so adapted to live in marginal habitats (one species thrives in pure petroleum pools), there is a tremendous potential to utilize these species for human consumption – enthomophagy, or as protein rich animal food, similarly to the lowly glasswart.