The Effect of Salt on the Growth of Salicornia, 
BY 
A. C. HALKET, B.Sc., 
Demonstrator in Botany at Bedford College , London . 
With Plate VIII and four Diagrams in the Text. 
C ERTAIN plants grow in soils that contain a considerable percentage 
of mineral salts. Sodium chloride is the most common of these salts 
and is the one most widely distributed. In this country the land impregnated 
with salt is only found near the coast in such a position that it is periodically 
covered by sea water. These areas are known as salt marshes and are 
covered by a very characteristic vegetation. The plants that form this 
vegetation have always aroused considerable interest, as their habit is 
obviously different from that of the typical mesophytic plant. The 
difference of appearance is due to the marked succulence of the majority of 
the species inhabiting the salt marshes. As early as 1876 Batalin 1 corre¬ 
lated this succulence with the presence of salt in the soil, as he found that 
‘salt plants’ cultivated under ordinary conditions in the botanical gardens 
of St. Petersburg lost their usual characteristics, but if they were treated 
with solutions of sodium chloride they developed normally. At a later date 
Batalin 2 made cultivation experiments with plants of Salicornia herbacea , 
L., watering them with various salt solutions, and he found that the typical 
soft and fleshy habit was developed only when sodium chloride was 
present. 
More recently the experiments of Lesage 3 have shown that ordinary 
non-succulent plants, e. g. Lepidium sativum , tend to become fleshy when 
cultivated in soil watered with solutions of sodium chloride. It is therefore 
probable that the presence of salt in the tissues of a plant has such an 
influence on the whole physiology of the plant as to alter its general 
structure, producing as one of the results the characteristic succulence seen 
in salt marsh plants. 
The number of plants composing the vegetation of a salt marsh is 
1 Batalin, A.: Cultur der Salzpflanzen. Regel, Gartenflora, 28, 1876. 
8 Batalin, A. : Wirkung des Chlomatriums auf die Entwicklung von Salicornia herbacea , L. 
(Bull, du Congres international de bot. et d’horticulture. St. Petersburg, 1886). Ref. in Bot. 
Centralbl. xxvii, 1886. 
3 Lesage, M. Pierre: Recherches experimentales sur les modifications des feuilles chez les 
plantes maritimes. Revue generale botanique, t. ii, 1890. 
[Annals of Botany, Vol. XXIX. No. CXIII. January, 1915.] 
