CXCV.— THE SAMPHIRE. 
Crithmum maritimum Linne. 
T HREE British plants are known as Samphire. Salkornia , the erect, much- 
branched fleshy Marsh Samphire of our saltings, with minute flowers, a plant 
preferred on some coasts as a pickle to the true Samphire, we have already 
described. Inula crithmoides Linn6, the rarer Golden Samphire of our southern 
and western coasts, grows both on marshes and on rocks, and derives its specific 
name crithmoides from the likeness of its fleshy foliage to Crithmum ; but is at once 
distinguished, when in flower, by its solitary golden capitula, which are about an 
inch across. Its name has been translated as the Samphire-leaved Flea-bane. The 
true or Rock Samphire ( Crithmum maritimum Linn6), however, was the first to 
obtain the name, which, no doubt, referred in the first instance to the stations in 
which it grows. The name Petrus crescentius , which it is said to have borne, the old 
French Perce-pierre , and the rarely found English name Pierce-stone , all suggest that, 
as in the word Saxifrage, it was assumed that a plant which springs from crevices in 
rocks has itself forced apart the rocks. Lyte in using the name Crestmarine wished 
apparently to preserve the notion of Sea Cress ; but at an early date the rock-loving 
plant became dedicated to the saint whose name signifies a rock, and it was the 
Herba di San Pietro and the Herbe de S. Pierre and apparently the Sainct Pierre 
of the French. Turner spells the English name Sampere , Lyte and Gerard have 
Sampier , Ray, Petiver, and Smith give it as Sampire , as also do the folios and 
early quartos of Shakespeare ; but the spelling Samphire of the later received text 
of the poet has fixed the modern form of the word. 
There is but one species in the genus Crithmum , the name of which, in its Greek 
form, Kpldpov, krithmon , which occurs in Dioscorides, is supposed to be derived 
from Kpcd-tj, krithe , barley, from the resemblance of the fruit of the Samphire to a 
barleycorn. The chief generic characters of the plant are the compound umbel 
with many rays and many short bracts and bracteoles ; the suppressed calyx-teeth ; 
the minute broad-based entire petals with an involute apex ; and the oblong terete 
fruit with a broad commissure, bifurcate carpophore, corky pericarp free from 
the seeds, sharp and slightly-winged primary ridges, and numerous vittae. For 
comparative purposes it is better to consider the vegetative characters of the plant, 
which are those that most exhibit its adaptation to its environment, as specific. 
The plant is less than a foot high, with a creeping, perennial, somewhat woody 
rhizome, and an ascending, flexuous, striate, solid, and but seldom branched 
aerial stem. Both stem and leaves are fleshy in texture and smooth. The leaves 
are bi- or tri-ternate, with long membranous sheaths, short petioles, and thick, acute, 
terete, awl-shaped, or sub-fusiform leaflets. The umbels terminate a stout fleshy 
peduncle and are flat or convex, the general effect of their pedicels and unripe ovaries 
being a yellowish-green, though the minute petals are white. The anthers are 
