A name given to several species of Salsola from which soda is made, by burning the barilla in heaps and lixiviating the ashes.
The alkali produced from the plant, being an impure carbonate of soda, used for making soap, glass, etc., and for bleaching purposes.
Impure soda obtained from the ashes of any seashore plant, or kelp.
impure sodium carbonate extracted from soap-wort. [Rey
bushy plant of Old World salt marshes and sea beaches having prickly leaves; burned to produce a crude soda ash
Algerian plant formerly burned to obtain calcium carbonate
(1) A plant, Salsola soda, which grows extensively on seashores in Spain, Sicily, and the Canary Islands; hence (2) an impure alkali made by burning plants of this and related species, formerly used in the manufacture of soda, soap, and glass.
Barilla refers to several species of salt-tolerant ("halophyte") plants that, until the 19th Century, were the primary source of soda ash and hence (we now know) of sodium carbonate. The word "barilla" was also used directly to refer to the soda ash that was prepared from the plants. Definitions of "barilla" in The Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1989).