Sea beet (Beta vulgaris subsp. maritima), also called wild chard, wild spinach beet or sea spinach, is a wild coastal green that grows on shingle beaches, sea walls and salt-marsh edges around the Atlantic and Mediterranean. It is the untamed ancestor of cultivated chard, beetroot and sugar beet, and the parts eaten are the glossy, dark-green leaves and their thick, ridged, faintly reddish stems. Raw, the young leaves are tender and mineral with a salty tang from the shore; cooked, they wilt like a firmer, more savoury spinach, while the stems soften to a juicy, chard-like crunch. A forager's green rather than a market vegetable, it is gathered along coastlines in spring and early summer and treated simply — wilted in butter or oil, blanched and dressed, or added to soups and tarts wherever spinach or chard would go.