SILVERHEAD, SILVERWEED, BEACH CARPET, SAMPHIRE, SALTWEED
June 13, 2022
We camped in Spring Hill, FL to go kayaking at Weeki Wachee Springs State Park. Tradition states that Weeki Wachee was named by the Seminole and it means “little spring” or “winding river.” Every day the spring pumps over 100 million gallons of crystal-clear 74-degree fresh water into an enchanting blue-green river. The water is so clear we could see the fine details on the faces of the trout schooling beneath our kayaks.
Bird watching in the area was also amazing. We saw green herons, little blue and great blue herons, snowy egrets wearing bright yellow socks on their thin black legs, and flocks of sandhill cranes with several fuzzy adolescent colts stumbling behind the adults.
One evening we strolled around Alfred McKethan / Pine Island Park. There on the beach was an abundance of silverhead. Joe and I had recently taken an excellent foraging class with Green Dean to familiarize ourselves with Floridian edibles and silverhead’s salty crunch was one of our favorites.
BOTANICAL DESCRIPTION
Blutaparon vermiculare is a low-growing succulent native to Central America and the southeastern United States. It can be found creeping along saline areas such as beaches, dunes and mangrove flats to form large mats from rhizomes that branch frequently.
The leaves are slender and arranged oppositely while the flowers are small, silvery, egg-shaped, slightly reminiscent of clover and present year-round.
Raw, the leaves taste moist, crisp, and salty.
RECIPE (SORT OF)
Green Dean mentions boiling silverhead as greens but, unfortunately, I started to feel under the weather and not up to cooking. I stripped the leaves from the stems, gave them a quick 1-min blanch and threw them in the fridge in a bath of rice vinegar to pickle – sure to show up in a later recipe!
References
Green Dean. (n.d.). Eat the weeds and other things, too. Saltweed. https://www.eattheweeds.com/tag/saltweed/
Flora of North America. (2020, November 5). Blutaparon vermiculare. http://floranorthamerica.org/Blutaparon_vermiculare
Leon Levy Native Plant Preserve. (n.d.). Blutaparon vermiculare. http://www.levypreserve.org/Plant-Listings/Blutaparon-vermiculare
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