Where there was nothing ...

 I'm going to start here with a modified map.

Google map.

This is the inner pond of Oyster Bay. When I first saw it, in 2009, the area I have tinted pink was not there; the land ended at the tip of the breakwater and the pond was open to the sea. Year by year, tide and storms have brought in sand and pebbles and even fist-sized stones to build a long arm that now almost reaches the shore at low tide. Logs have piled up on the top, at high tide level, and I noticed this week that uprooted kelp and other seaweeds are starting to accumulate on the outer edge.

And where back in 2009, there was just plain sand, now there's a thriving patch of pickleweed. It's starting to spread onto the new spit, too.

Pickleweed, aka  glasswort, sea beans, sea asparagus ... Salicornia depressa.

Green stems, turning pink.

These are flowering plants: the leaves are tightly attached to the stem, making them look jointed. And the flowers at the tip are tiny and mostly hidden by the bracts, also closely wrapped around the stem.

The tips turn red towards the end of summer.

Pickleweed is salt-tolerant; at high tide, these plants are sometimes within reach of the waves. The plant filters out the salt from the water and stores it in specialized vacuoles; when they become too saturated, they drop off. 

The names it has collected: pickleweed, sea beans, sea asparagus: remind us that it's edible. Fresh, right off the plant, or lightly boiled, or pickled. I picked a handful of green and pink tips, washed them well and scalded them lightly. They were still crunchy, and very salty. A nice nibbling snack, or they'd make a good addition to a salad.

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Empiezo con un mapa de Google, modificado.

1. Esta es la laguna en el extremo de la Bahía Oyster. Cuando la vi por primera vez, en el año 2009, el area que he marcado con color de rosa no existía. La tierra terminaba donde acaba el rompeolas, y lo que es la laguna ahora estaba completamente abierto. Año tras año, las mareas y las tempestades han traído arena y piedritas y hasta piedras del tamaño de un puño para construir una lengua de tierra larga que ahora casi llega a tocar la playa opuesta a bajamar. Troncos flotantes se han amonotonado encima, al nivel de altamar, y esta semana vi que algas marinas muertas se empiezan a acumular en el lado expuesto a las olas.
2. Y donde en 2009 había solamente arena, ahora hay un jardín floreciente de Salicornia. Y ya empieza a extenderse sobre la nueva lengua de tierra.
3. Salicornia depressa.
4. Empieza a volverse roja hacia el final del verano.

Estas son plantas que producen flores; las hojas se adhieren fuertemente a los tallos, haciéndolos aparecer segmentados. Y hacia el extremo del tallo, las flores son pequeñas y casi completamente escondidas tras las brácteas, que también encierran el tallo.

Salicornia es una planta halófita, o sea, que tolera la sal. A marea alta, estas plantas pueden estar al alcance de las olas. La planta separa la sal del agua y la almacena en vacuolas especializadas; cuando la concentración de sal llega a cierto nivel, estas vacuolas se mueren y caen al suelo. 

Es comestible; de allí los nombres que recibe en inglés: frijoles de mar, espárragos, etc. Se puede comer fresca, al cortarla de la planta, o se puede hervir ligeramente; también se puede preservar en vinagre. Yo corté un manojo de tallos, verdes y rojos, los lavé y herví brevemente. Seguían crujientes, y muy salados. Un buen bocadillo, o quedarían bien en una ensalada verde.

Salt lovers

At Oyster Bay, water currents, over the last 5 years or so, have built up a long spit at right angles to the breakwater, gravelly on the higher portions, pure sand at the inner edge.

The new spit almost encloses the bay (to the left). At the lowest tide, it is almost possible to walk to the mainland from here.

The spit, so far, is almost barren of plant life, but at the upper end, a healthy population of pickleweed is settling in happily.

Pickleweed, aka glasswort, sea aparagus, samphire, Salicornia pacifica.

Pickleweed is a halophyte, a salt plant.

The word derives from Ancient Greek ἅλας (halas) 'salt' and φυτόν (phyton) 'plant'. (Wikipedia)

Whereas salt kills most plants, some Salicornias can't survive in fresh water. It is a land plant; it needs to be out of the water at some point during the day; but where there is no salt, whether from tidal waters or salt spray, it will not grow.

At the very end of the breakwater, the tide comes in, bathing the growing pickleweed. This whole area, rocks included, will be completely underwater at high tide.

Salt, however, is a problem in plant tissues. The concentration has to be contained within certain limits: if there is too little, if the cell juices are too watered down, in these plants that live in salt water, osmosis draws the water out into the more highly concentrated sea water. It's as if the plant were living in a desert.

But if the salt concentration in the plant tissue is too high, the normal functions of the cell are disrupted. Pickleweed deals with this by concentrating salts in the terminal segments of the stems; eventually these tips turn red and fall off, taking the salt with them.

Flowering tips of pickleweed

The plant is a succulent; it has fat, leafless stems, each with a knobby tip, sometimes pink or red, sometimes green. The flowers are found on these knobs, but are extremely small, clustered in groups of 3 in the joints. They are wind-pollinated, and will produce one seed per flower.

Zooming in, to show the pale yellow flowers.

A curious discovery: I had walked out to the end of the new spit, and was returning, hurrying to beat the incoming tide. At the spot where the spit meets the breakwater, (the third photo above) the water was already ankle deep. But the current was moving from the inner bay to the outer ocean.

In the photo above, the water comes from the open strait, but once it breaks over the spit, the direction changes; water goes down to the end, into the bay, and out into the strait again, washing the bay as it goes. With time, this may change the muddy, stinking character of the inner bay. Something to watch.