VINES AND HERBACEOUS PLANTS OF THE MIDDLE DUNES. 



37! 



summer grape ( Vitis (test I nails) and the muscadine ( I", rotundi- 

 folia) — and a green brier (Smilax hotut-nox). Hardly less impor- 

 tant are Smilax rot and I folia and S. (jlatica, the yellow jessamine 

 (Gelsemium sempervirens), and the scarlet woodbine (Lo nicer a sem- 

 pervirens). The Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) and 

 the trumpet creeper (Tecoma rad leans) are frequent, but less abun- 

 dant, while the poison ivy (Rims radicans) is comparatively rare 

 among the dunes. Some of these climbers, Tecoma, Lonicera, and 

 Gelsemium, are very showy when in blossom. Smilax glauca some- 

 times entirely covers the lesser dunes, associated only with small 



Fig. fft.—Panicum amarum among the middle dunes near Cape Henry, Va. 



herbaceous plants, such as Hudsonia tomentosa, Lechea maritima, 

 and Diodia teres. Similar in habit to the strand form of these lianas 

 is a peculiar form of the dewberry (Rubus villosus), 1 whose long, 

 prickly stems trail over the ground, sometimes to the length of nearly 

 2 meters ((3 feet). 



One of the most characteristic plants of the middle-dune formation 

 is Panlcum amarum, (fig. G7), which is quite different in habit from 

 its variety minus, and resembles the typical form of P. virgatum. It 

 is a large, glaucous grass of coarse texture, forming tufts of consider- 



R. canadensis of authors, not of Linnaeus (fide Prof. L. H. Bailey). 

 23592— No. 6—01 5 



