VEGETATION IN THE DUNES 



ing sand. In the comparatively level stretches 

 back of the beach, the grass grows to greatest 

 perfection and reaches a height of two or 

 three feet, growing thickly, dark green and 

 shining in summer, and bearing pale yellow 

 fruiting stalks in the autumn. As the winter 

 comes on the green gradually fades, but is 

 replaced by a golden straw color, that like a 

 luminous yellow haze spreads over the sands. 

 While the beach grass is beautiful in mass, 

 with its colors varying with the season, the 

 individual clumps and sprays of graceful up- 

 right and drooping grass stems, and rigid 

 plumes of flower and fruit are exceedingly 

 picturesque in their brilliant white setting of 

 sand. Around each clump is often drawn a 

 magic circle, a fairy ring, for the drooping 

 grass blade, blown by the wind, writes with 

 its tip in the soft sand. 



Another plant which binds the sand has the 

 singularly inappropriate name of poverty- 

 grass, for it is not a grass, but a member of 

 the rockrose family, and it expresses anything 

 but poverty, if one is to judge by its wealth 

 of golden blossoms, which paint the dune sides 

 yellow in June. Rather should it be called 

 by its own name, Hudsonia, given it in honor 



71 



