When the salt is applied before the text is salted , then what is "that"? In all the documentation I read that the salt is applied before the text is hashed and the salt is stored somewhere in the database in plain text. 

So for example bcrypt generates the following structure: 

$2y$10$M8z/Bcli/eh3ay5.4w4Y5.hbTZ2wrwDKdJXkCQ7HuFazAzOqZzl4`.

$2y$10$M8z/Bcli/   &lt;-- this does not look like a part of the hash


What kind of structure is this?
It seems you are looking at Modular Crypt Format.


2y identifies a specific version of the bcrypt algorithm 
10 specifies the number of rounds
M8z/Bcli/eh3ay5.4w4Y5. is the salt


and the rest is the hash according to the modular crypt format bcrypt page.

It seems the Modular Crypt Format is "deprecated" in favor of PHC-SF which does however look similar.