1904] KEARNEY: PLANTS OF SEA BEACHES AND DUNES 427 
this spot is under water every day at high tide.* The lateness 
of the season (December 2), and consequently reduced evapora- 
tion from the soil when exposed at ebb tide, may partly account 
for the unexpectedly small amount of salt found. Otherwise we 
must admit a very wide range of salt content in the soil of salt 
marshes on the same coast, only a few hundred miles apart, 
since on the Massachusetts coast, all other conditions being 
quite similar, more than eight times as much salt occurred in the 
surface 39™ . 
The results obtained on the Massachusetts coast are sufficient, 
nevertheless, to indicate that the soil of salt marshes is highly 
saline, at least during certain seasons of the year, and that the 
ecological peculiarities of their vegetation may safely be attrib- 
uted, in large part, to this factor. Yet, we may observe in 
passing, there are large tracts of land remote from the coast, 
in the arid parts of North America, which contain still greater 
amounts of soluble salts and bear a vegetation of even more pro- 
nouncedly halophytic character than the marshes of the Atlantic 
coast.? 
8A chemical analysis of this soil was obtained through the courtesy of Dr. F. K 
Cameron of the Bureau of Soils, U.S. Department of Agriculture. The total con- 
tent of salts readily soluble in water in the sample analyzed was 0.27 per cent. (of 
total weight of soil), made up as follow 
I. BASES AND ACIDS. 2. CONVENTIONAL COMBINATIONS, 
Calcium - - - ° trace Magnesium sulfate - - 10.22 
Magnesium - - - 2.19 Potassium chlori - - 15-33 
Sodium - - Ne 27-73. Sodium chlori - §5.48 
Potassium - 8.0 Sodium - 13.14 
Sulfions - - - 16.79 Sodium bicarbonate - - 5.83 
lori - - - 40.88 ; 
Carbonic acid - - - 4.38 x 400.00 
100,00 
9 Thus a number of examinations of saline soils in southern Arizona showed t 
Suaeda Torreyana will grow in the capes of 4:5 bet cent. of salt in the a 
39™ of the soil, and of an average for the upper 9°™ of 3 per cent.; Sarcodatus 
vermicularis, where an equal amount occurs; Allenrolfea (Spirostachys) occidentalis in 
the presenc 3.1 per cent. in the surface , an avera: er cent. in the firs 
m and an average of 0.75 percent. in the first 189"; <AZriplex lentiformis where 
3.3 per cent. of salt in the surface 3°", and an average of 1.6 nt, in the first 
g@™ occurs. In the San Joaquin Valley, in central California, “salt grass” (Dzs- 
tichlis spicata), a rather shallow-rooting plant, —. sieagipiteced in the presence of 3.3 
per cent. of soluble salts in the surface 3°™ of the 
