Appearance
"Honckenya peploides" is a small, subdioecious, spreading plant, forming patches on sand and shingle above the high water mark of beaches. The stem is branching and buried in the sand. The leaves grow in opposite pairs and are fleshy with membranous margins, pale yellowish-green and ovate, oblong or lanceolate, usually with pointed tips. The flowers are often dioecious and have parts in fives. They grow in the upper leaf axils and have ovate to lanceolate sepals, greenish-white petals of about the same length, and three styles. The fruit is a capsule larger than the sepals and superficially resembling a pea. In pistillate flowers the stamens are undeveloped while in staminate flowers, the capsules are poorly developed.There are two subspecies, "H. p. peploides" is the nominate subspecies with ovate to lanceolate leaves and flowers growing singly in the upper leaf axils, while "H. p. major" is coarser, has longer, more slender leaves, and the flowers are mostly in a multi-flowered cyme.
Naming
Other common names include sea chickweed, sea pimpernal, sea-beach sandwort, and sea purslane. The scientific name is often spelled ""Honkenya"", and is named after the German botanist Gerhard August Honckeny.
Distribution
"Honckenya peploides" has a circum-boreal distribution in both temperate and arctic regions. It is found in coastal regions on sand, shingle and pebbles, in northern Europe, northern Asia and North America.References:
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