from HellsBelle@sh.itjust.works to world@lemmy.world on 21 Dec 13:16
https://sh.itjust.works/post/51979959
On the scrubby banks of the rural swathes of the Venice lagoon, an evening chorus of cicadas underscores the distant whine of farmers’ three-wheeled minivans. Dotted along the brackish fringes of the cultivated plots are scatterings of silvery-green bushes – sea fennel.
This plant is a member of a group of remarkable organisms known as halophytes – plant species that thrive in saltwater. Long overlooked and found growing in the in-between spaces – saltmarshes, coastlines, the fringes of lagoons – halophytes straddle boundaries in both ecosystems and cuisines. But with shifting agricultural futures, this may be about to change.
From Sant’Erasmo, the spires of Venice, majestic – and unavoidably sinking – are just visible across the water. The Tidal Garden’s task is to unite these two worlds.
They work with six or seven species, including marsh samphire, monk’s beard and purslane. For a long time, these crops have been foraged by coastal communities in Venice and beyond – a Tudor record lists three accidental deaths in England linked to samphire foraging in the late 1500s – but never taken seriously as a commercial crop.
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