Abstract
Salicornia europaea (glasswort) is succulent, annual, halophytic plant mainly distributed throughout reclaimed land or salt marsh. It has strong tolerance to salt so that it plays the part of the pioneer species in the first succession. According to domestic and foreign studies, S. europaea contains plenty of minerals and antioxidant in the body. Since people take note of an availableness of this plant as health diet, the natural growth sites are threatened. In addition to development of salt marsh and sea shore, imprudent harvest has a bad effect to S. europaea population maintenance. To seek ways to preserve the population of this plant, we carried out the continuity of seed germination and restoration test. Seokmo Island, Daebu Island, Youngjong Island and Sudokwon landfill in Korea are selected sites for research. Result of germination continuity shows that most S. europaea seeds germinate on March but no more after July. However the germination was occurred after that time in the greenhouse. So we concluded that no germination after July is a matter of environmental condition not the number of remaining seeds. Also germination was seldom occurred in the spot where seeds production was not happened. In result of continuity test of seed germination by soil depth, germination was occurred vigorously only in top soil. From these results, we note that most S. europaea germinate in the early spring, and germination is finished by July. And this rapid germination speed makes the number of seeds in soil seed bank rare. If a large number of S. europaea in some area are harvested after July, the number of this species will dramatically decrease in that area the following year. In Seokmo Island, we carried out reintroduction experiment by sowing S. europaea seeds. On the first year, a small number of S. europaea settled and they produced seeds successfully. On April 2010, the second year, we observed many S. europaea in seed sowing sites. And we found out that plowing is more efficient than treatment sea water for settlement of S. europaea.
