-18- 



Destruction of the 

 the dunes disrupt 

 sands may then 

 communities. Con 

 prevents reestabli 

 stability of the 

 threatened. The re 

 trampling on the 

 presented in anothe 

 the current manag 

 and Plum Island Sta 

 misuse have begun 

 should be aware of 

 make an effort to k 



fragile network of vegeta 

 s the stabilizing process 

 engulf and bury estab 

 tinuous pressure from h 

 shment of the vegetatio 



whole dune system may 

 suits of a study of the eff 



coastal dune vegetation in 

 r report (see McDonnell ( 

 ement techniques used by b 

 te Park staffs the effects 

 to disappear. Visitors 

 the fragile nature of the v 

 eep trampling to a minimum. 



tion covering 

 , and shifting 

 lished plant 

 uman activity 

 n, and the 

 be seriously 

 ects of human 

 the refuge are 

 1979M . With 

 oth the Refuge 

 of early land 

 to Plum Island 

 egetation and 



PREVIOUS BOTANICAL WORK 



Although Plum Island was located within easy traveling 

 distance from the residences of such notable botanists as 

 Jacob Bigelow, Manasseh Cutler, William Oakes, Charles 

 Pickering, John Robinson and John Sears, as well as many 

 other less well known collectors, it was virtually ignored 

 botanically. The first documentation of the flora of the 

 island comes from Bigelow (1824) in the expanded second 

 edition of his Florula Bostoniensis . He mentions the 

 occurrence of Arenar ia peploides (beach arenaria) , Hudsonia 

 tomentosa (downy hudsonia) , and Prunus littoralis (= P. 

 mar itima Marsh., beach plum) on the island. 3 it appears that 

 Bigelow observed these species sometime between 1814 and 

 1824 (Bailey, 1883) . The earliest extant herbarium 

 specimens from the island were collected by Oakes. Although 

 the specimens I have seen were not dated, they were no doubt 

 collected sometime between 1817 and 1842. It appears from 

 the type of collections made by early botanists, e.g. 

 Puccinellia fasciculata by Oakes, Ar istida tuberculosa by 

 William Boott, Smilacina stellata by Arthur Cole, and Arabis 

 drummondi by Emile Williams, that they were collecting only 

 the rare and unique plants which occurred on the island. 

 Before 1900 only 26 taxa were collected from the island; of 

 these 21 were monocots and 5 dicots. 



Cyrus Tracy's (1858) Studies of the Essex Flora was the 

 first botanical work specifically dealing with plants 

 growing in Essex County. It includes only the area around 

 the town of Lynn and has no specific mention of Plum Island. 

 Some twenty-three years later Robinson (1880) published the 



3 Author citations appear in the "Flora". 



