A Guide to Ocean Dune Plants Common to North Carolina

by E. Jean Wilson Kraus, Sarah Friday (Editor)

Overview

For readers of all levels of interest and expertise, this guide provides a clear, informative look at the ecology and biology of the dunes. Botanically accurate drawings by the author illustrate more than 50 trees, shrubs, vines, herbs, and grasses that can be found on the dunes. Keys, brief descriptions, and other facts about the plants also aid in identification.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807842126
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	03/31/1988
Series:	Sea Grant College Program Series
Edition description:	1
Pages:	74
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.18(d)

Read an Excerpt

A Guide to Ocean Dune Plants Common to North Carolina

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By E. Jean Wilson Kraus

The University of North Carolina Press

Copyright © 1988 University of North Carolina Press
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8078-4212-6

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Chapter One

The Plant Habitat

Plant establishment on the beach is impossible. Roots cannot take hold on constantly shifting sand or in moving salt water. But plants can take root just above the high tide line where sand accumulates.

The establishment of vegetation is important in the process of building and stabilizing dunes. When windblown sand is caught by obstacles such as plants, a dune begins to take shape around it. When accumulated sand covers dune grasses, rhizome growth through the sand aids in holding the dune in place and increases dune stabilization. Plants must tolerate and survive a variety of harsh environmental conditions for successful vegetative growth on dunes.

Dune plant habitat features:

Wind-carried salt spray limits vegetative growth on frontal dunes to salt tolerant plants.

Salt spray kills the exposed tips of less tolerant shrubs and trees on rear dunes causing a stunted and pruned appearance.

Storm waves, high waves and overwash may uproot and wash away plants growing on frontal dunes.

Coarse sand quickly drains rainwater leaving a limited supply of fresh water for plants.

Few soil nutrients are available to plants since little decaying plant and animal matter accumulates on the sand.

Intense sunlight reflected by the sand, in combination with the constant winds, causes plants to dehydrate.

Extremes of hot and cold temperatures on the exposed sand must be tolerated by plants.

High winds bury plants with sand or expose plant roots to the air.

High winds may break or flatten standing plants.

The establishment of vegetation benefits dune growth and stabilization. As dunes grow higher and wider, a dune line gradually forms parallel to the shoreline. With increasing stability, there is gradual transition from open dune vegetation near the ocean, to shrub thickets and maritime forests on protected dune ridges and swales across the barrier island.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from A Guide to Ocean Dune Plants Common to North Carolina by E. Jean Wilson Kraus Copyright © 1988 by University of North Carolina Press. Excerpted by permission.
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What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Every visitor to the North Carolina ocean dunes should have a copy of this book.—Jimmy Massey, Herbarium Director, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill