Ice plant
Mesembryanthemum crystallinum
Family · Aizoaceae · Irritating
The plant covered in transparent blisters that look like drops of ice or salt crystals, glittering in the sun on cliffs and sands of the south and the islands.
Dunes and sand · Walls and rocks · Roadsides and waste ground
Also known ascommon ice plant, crystalline iceplant
How to tell it
A creeping, very fleshy plant with broad spoon-shaped leaves and stems that redden with age. The whole surface is covered in transparent shiny vesicles, which are cells full of water and salt, and that is what makes it unmistakable. White or pale pink flowers with many very fine petals in a star.
What it is confused with
Hottentot fig
Carpobrotus edulis
They are in the same family and both are fleshy coastal plants. Hottentot fig has three-sided leaves as thick as fingers and large yellow or pink flowers; ice plant is flat, covered in crystal vesicles, with small white flowers. Both are invasive.
What it is for
It has been eaten in salads in several cultures and is grown as a gourmet vegetable, salty in flavour and crisp in texture. Mind the context: it accumulates salt and nitrates from the soil in high amounts, and the plant growing beside a road or on fertilised ground is not the same thing as the greenhouse one.
Traditionally used as food. This is not permission to eat it.
Where it occurs
Each square is an area with recorded observations of this plant. The lighter background is the set of areas where any of the entries has been observed, and serves as a reference. Note what this is not: it is not where the plant lives, it is where people record it, so trails and towns always look fuller than the mountains. Data from GBIF.
Sources
Community
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