1902.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA, 651 



Station ¥0. 34, have a few cedars and stand some distance back 

 from the ocean front, and this disposition of dunes is most marked 

 at Townsend's Inlet, where they encroach on the extensive salt 

 meadows. 



Crossing Townsend's Inlet, Seven-Mile Beach is reached with 

 the highest sea dunes on the whole New Jersey coast. This beach, 

 settled upon in 1788," was not. investigated ecologically prior to 

 the summer of 1901. A description of the flora was not incor- 

 porated, therefore, in my paper published in 1900. Passing 

 Avalon, the highest dunes (forty-two feet) are found close to the 

 sea front. The dunes are held in place by Ammophila areivria 

 (L. ) Link, and where the dune has encroached on the forest an 

 occasional dead tree may be seen sticking out from the dune sur- 

 face. Beyond Piermont, the district of Seven -Mile Beach studied 

 by the writer is reached. The dunes fronting the ocean half-way 

 between Stone Harbor and Piermont are rounded knolls about six 

 to ten feet high covered with marram grass, Ammophila areiiari.a 

 (L.) Link. The beach at low tide is extremely flat, and by the 

 appearance of the sand may be divided into three zonal areas: (1) 

 The firm, hard beach covered at high tide with salt water; (2) a 

 higher beach with dry, loose, drifted sand held in place by drift- 

 wood; (3) the wet beach filled at high tide by pools of water. 

 The two latter areas comprise the middle beach of my previous 

 paper. The upper beach is characterized by scattered patches of 

 sea blite, Cakile edentula (Bigel.) Hook, and Ammodenia peploides 

 (L.) Rupr , which forms rounded annual or temporary dunes. 

 Here and there channels have been cut into the low dunes 

 which are hardly worthy of the name, so that at high water 

 the tide runs back to the meadows behind. Several of these cuts 

 occur meeting marshy places behind, surrounded by dunes on the 

 seaward side of the railroad. On the exposed sand of these depres- 

 sions Portulaca oUracea L. grows, and on their edge creeps Stro- 

 phoshjles helvola (L.) Britton. Just before the channel joins tbe 

 marshy areas a large amphitheatre of barren wet sand is found, 

 fringed by Scirpus lacmtrls L , Atriplex arenaria Nott., Sa/icoriiia 

 herbacea L., Portulaca oleraeea L., outside of which character 

 plants in concentric circles, Strophostyle-i helrola (L.) Britton, 



» The house built then stood in Piermont, at Second avenue and Thirty- 

 first street. 



