pickleweed

noun

pick·​le·​weed ˈpi-kəl-ˌwēd 

: any of several succulent plants having leaves often reduced to scales or sheaths: such as

a

: glasswort

b

: a shrub (Allenrolfea occidentalis) of the goosefoot family growing in moist saline soils of the southwestern U.S.

c

: saltwort sense 2

Example Sentences

Recent Examples on the Web

The land transitions from muddy carpet for tiptoeing egrets to a rippling watery habitat at high tide studded with mounds of native grasses and pickleweed. —Julie Johnson, San Francisco Chronicle, 29 Oct. 2021

Native plants like the Pacific cordgrass and pickleweed provide the muscle for sea level rise adaptation, said John Callaway, a wetlands restoration ecologist at the University of San Francisco. —Julie Johnson, San Francisco Chronicle, 29 Oct. 2021

Yet until recently, sea beans, which belong to the genus Salicornia and are also known as samphire, glasswort, pickleweed, and sea asparagus, had never figured prominently in Charleston’s storied culinary traditions. —Caroline Hatchett, Smithsonian Magazine, 12 Mar. 2021

Water slowly snakes inland to flood the ground peppered with plugs of native pickleweed seeds, and ducks dive for emerging aquatic bugs. —National Geographic, 13 June 2017

Word History

First Known Use

circa 1925, in the meaning defined above