Coastal dunes are
a landscape of unconsolidated sand, blown from barrier beaches
and the seaward shore. If the salt marsh is a landscape of
water and the sand plain is a landscape of fire then the coastal
dunes are a landscape of wind. The sand is held in place by
an extensive carpet of American beachgrass (Ammophila breviligulata).
Ammophila is uniquely adapted to colonize and stabilize the
shifting sands of the dunes by being able to send chutes upwards
of six feet through blowing sands. Beach heather (Hudsonia
species) and bearberry (Arctostaphylos uva ursi) are sub-shrubs
that grow in the stable and sheltered dunes of the North Atlantic
coast.
As stabilization of the dune proceeds, shrubs, vines and trees
grow in succession. Plants include: bayberry, rose and juniper,
poison ivy, grape and green brier. Life is tenuous in the coastal
dunes with wind and waves able to blow out and wash away plants
from the shifting sands with every storm. Over the years I have
documented the additive and subtractive process of the coastline
and the coastal dunes particularly evident in the parabolic dune
formations at the tip of Cape Cod and the restorative dune work
within the Cape Cod National Seashore.
|