Salt Marsh Plants in Schleswig-Holstein Wadden Sea National Park

Aside from the seaweeds that submerge for hours at every high tide, there are only two flowering plants on the mudflats that endure daily flooding: glasswort and marsh grass. They grow intermittently in the range from 40 cm below the high tide line to the middle high tide line.
Above the high tide line, the andelgrass begins to form the first closed cover of vegetation through foothills. Other salt-tolerant species such as sea aster, sea sod and sea lavender soon settled. Ungrazed areas are covered by the bushes of the harlequin orchard. This salt marsh zone is reached at every spring tide or other slightly higher water levels and extends to about 40 cm above the MThw line.
Where summer salt water showers only rarely occur, the variety of flowering plants increases. In the upper salt marsh, which is characterized by the salt red fescue and the Bodden bulrush, there are already several dozen plant species that live here, especially on sandy soils. Centaury, toothbright, sea plantain and sedge are just a few of them.

Please always stay on the paths.

Typical plants of the salt marsh
Samphire, sea plantain, sea aster, sea pink, sea lavender, purslane, sea turf, salt marsh grass, sea trident, milkweed, sea couch grass, sea mugwort, sea wormwood, salt marsh red fescue, andel grass, common scurvy.