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- This plant grows mainly on the coast – “frequent on gale swept cliffs” which matches Cowbar conditions. It has a high tolerance of salt.
- Patches of its leaves can be seen throughout the winter in the grassland and it is one of the first things to flower here. In 2022 flowers appeared in March but most scurvy grass flowers from April to August.
- According to the Field Studies Council, it is now beginning to grow along roadsides as winter gritting creates salty conditions and traffic passing wafts the seeds along or they get caught in and distributed by vehicle tyres.
- It is not a grass, despite its name. The leaves are fleshy, shiny and rounded.
- It has a high vitamin C content and used to be an important part of a sailor’s diet to prevent scurvy. Even the Vikings are said to have taken the plants on board with them.
- The leaves can apparently be used in salads and have a hot cress-like taste.
- The white flowers are fragrant and short lived and when the petals fall the plant produces rounded seed pods.
