142 THE PLANT LIFE OF MARYLAND 



Dune and Steand Vegetation. 



The fringing bar which forms the ocean front of Maryland is 

 very narrow from the Delaware line southward to the head of the 

 Chincoteague Bay, below which it widens, but nowhere exceeds a 

 mile in width. Tbe bar is fringed by Fresh or Salt Marsh along 

 its inner side and the outer side is a low series of Dunes, nowhere 

 reaching such size as those at Cape Henry or Cape Henlopen and 

 everywhere being in a comparatively stable condition (See Plate 

 VIII, Fig. 2.) The only trees on the bar are those forming a small 

 grove of Loblolly Pine at the extreme northern end near Fenwick 

 Island Light. 



The predominant plant of the Dunes is Ammophila arenaria, with 

 which are associated the plants characteristic of dunes throughout 

 the North Atlantic coast, as Cakile edentula, Ihulsonia tomentosa, 

 Ammodenia peploides, Oenothera humifusa, Xanthium canadense, 

 SalsoJa hall, Euphorbia polygonifolia and Polygonum maritimum. 



At a few places on the shores of the Chesapeake the tidal cur- 

 rents have transported sand and silt along shore in such a manner 

 as to build spits or cusps projecting from the old shore line. These 

 newly-built spits, with coarse sandy soil and soil water which is, 

 at some times at least, highly salt are closely similar in their vegeta- 

 tion to the. fringing bar of the Atlantic coast. Two of these spits 

 are worthy of detailed description, one at Castle Haven in Dor- 

 chester County, and a second at Lloyds Creek, near Betterton in 

 Kent County, beyond the range of the halophytic flora. The former 

 is young in terms of its vegetation; the second much older as evi- 

 denced by the forest covering of its inner end. 



The spit at Castle Haven projects eastward from a headland which 

 shows evidence of having been worn back several hundred feet in 

 very recent time (Fig. 7). The inner portion of the spit (/) is 

 underlaid by the remains of a marsh, which has little effect upon 

 the present conditions for vegetation. The outer portion (II) is 

 recent. The old substratum is probably responsible for the small 

 lake in the old part of the spit. 



