Crithmum maritimum

Crithmum is a monospecific genus of flowering plants in the carrot family, Apiaceae. It currently consists of just one species, Crithmum maritimum, but when it was originally published by Linnaeus (in Species Plantarum vol. 1, p. 246) he included two species. The other, listed as C. pyrenaicum, is now called Libanotis pyrenaica or Seseli libanotis. Modern accounts usually separate rock samphire into a separate genus. It is distinguished from Seseli (Libanotis) by the yellow (not white) flowers and from Silaum by its fleshy leaves and four (not 0-3) bracts. Other plants that have been included within the genus include:

Cenolophium fischeri, Baltic parsley, which was named Crithmum campestre by Anton Johann von Güldenstädt in Bieberstein's Flora Taurico-Caucasica in 1819, but is currently assigned to its own genus. Astydamia latifolia, which was listed by Carl Linnaeus the Younger as Crithmum latifolium in 1782. Silaum silaus, which was called Crithmum silaus by C.A. Wiebel in 1799. The name Crithmum pre-dates Linnaeus. It derives from the Ancient Greek word κριθή (krithe), which originally meant "barley", and was used by Dioscorides as the name of a plant ("krithmon") which he described as "a shrubby little herb about a foot in height, with thick leaves, which grows in rocky maritime places..." Although crithmon may have been the name for rock samphire in Roman times, modern botany uses binomials, so it is known as Crithmum maritimum (which can be abbreviated to C. maritimum) rather than simply Crithmum when writing about the individual species.