Plant
Glasswort
Picture to come.
A fleshy, jointed plant of salt marshes, also called marsh samphire. Its ash was a source of soda for glass and soap in the medieval Mediterranean, but it was not used this way in 12th-century England, where no glass was made. The plant had no English name until the 16th century, when foreign glassmakers recognised it growing in England. Its use as food here in this period is not recorded.
Caveats (confidence: high)
Not a documented 12th-century English commodity; the name itself is 16th-century. Medieval English use as a food plant was not found.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org
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