The main European species is often eaten, called marsh samphire in Britain, and the main North American species is occasionally sold in grocery stores or appears on restaurant menus as sea beans, samphire greens or sea asparagus.

The opposite leaves are strongly reduced to small fleshy scales with a narrow dry margin, hairless, unstalked and united at the base, thus enclosing and forming a succulent sheath around the stem, which gives it the appearance of being composed of jointed segments.

Evolving from within the perennial and frost-sensitive former genus Sarcocornia (now shown to be paraphyletic),[7] the annual, strongly inbreeding and frost-tolerant Salicornia diversified during the late Pliocene to early Pleistocene.

Two tetraploid lineages expanded rapidly, with the ability to colonize lower belts of the salt marshes than their diploid relatives.

As the succulent plants lose their characteristics while drying, herbarium specimens often cannot be determined with certainty and are less suited for taxonomic studies.

[8][9] A 2017 study resulted in Sarcocornia being sunk into Salicornia, substantially increasing the size of the genus, which was divided into four subgenera.

[20][21] In South Korea, Phyto Corporation has developed a technology of extracting low-sodium salt from S. europaea, a salt-accumulating plant.

The company claims that the naturally derived plant salt is effective in treating high blood pressure and fatty liver disease[22] by reducing sodium intake.

[23] The company has also developed a desalted Salicornia powder containing antioxidative and antithrombus polyphenols, claimed to be effective in treating obesity and arteriosclerosis,[24] as well as providing a means to help resolve global food shortages.

It is highly effective at removing selenium from soil, which is absorbed by the plant and then released into the atmosphere to be dispersed by prevailing winds.

The introduction of the LeBlanc process for industrial production of soda ash superseded the use of plant sources in the first half of the 19th century.

Adding nitrogen-based fertiliser to the seawater appears to increase the rate of growth and the eventual height of the plant,[30] and the effluent from marine aquaculture (e.g. shrimp farming) is a suggested use for this purpose.

[28] Experimental fields of Salicornia have been planted in Ras al-Zawr (Saudi Arabia),[29] Eritrea (northeast Africa) and Sonora (northwest Mexico)[31] aimed at the production of biodiesel.

The company responsible for the Sonora trials (Global Seawater Archived 2018-05-28 at the Wayback Machine) claims between 225 and 250 gallons of BQ-9000 biodiesel can be produced per hectare (approximately 2.5 acres) of salicornia,[32] and is promoting a $35 million scheme to create a 12,000-acre (49 km2) salicornia farm in Bahia de Kino.

[34] S. brachiata revealed the dominance of rhamnose, arabinose, mannose, galactose, and glucose, with meager presence of ribose and xylose in their structural polysaccharide.