When you say "just salt" ... what kind of conditions produce that sort of salt formation? Does it tell us anything about the conditions when it was formed? Was there some brine pool or something? How did it get exposed where it is now?
Maybe describing it as "plant-like" was not really called for, can we still learn something interesting from this?
There was very definitely large* amounts of water on Mars, and there is also evidence of salinity[1], so it seems possible that there would be saline in volume to produce deposits.
My first thought was some sort of crystal formation. Not sure if it's salt but it does look crystalline in nature. I'll get off my exogeologist armchair rest now.
People will always lose their minds over simple mineral intrusions because the only rocks they’ve ever seen are just round.