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to the south and is separated from the mainland by wide marshes 

 dotted with a few small islands. The Isle of Palms is about four 

 and one-half miles long and one mile across at the broadest part. 

 The time at my disposal being limited, I did not attempt to study 

 the entire island, but confined myself to the western half Within 

 this small area, however, there is as great a diversity of ecological 

 conditions as is generally found over a much more extended 

 region. From the few struggling and half-buried halophytes of 

 the beach one may pass over the outer dunes with their grasses 

 and the inner dunes with their palms, then across a narrow 

 marshy strip and into a dense forest of oaks and pines, with trees 

 over forty feet in height — and all within a distance of three 

 hundred yards. 



It will probably be best to begin by describing the vegetation 

 as it appears in passing from the shore on the south side to the 

 marshes on the north. 



TJie Upper Beach. — Just above ordinary high tide there is an 

 area of varying width where the sand remains constantly damp 

 and is occasionally flooded by very high water. At places along 

 this narrow strip of damp sand there was coming up an immense 

 quantity of seedling sea-oats [Utiio/a paniculatd), which was 

 preparing to hold the sand together for a new line of dunes. 

 Although I have observed shores fringed with .sea-oats at various 

 places in North Carolina, South Carolina and the Bahama Islands, 

 this is the first time that I have ever noticed the Uniola seeding 

 itself in any quantity. Besides the Uniola there was very little 

 else to be found in this strip except an occasional specimen of 

 Salsola Kali, Croton punctatus, Atriplcx arenaria and AmarantJius 

 pumilus. This is as far south as this interesting species of 

 Ainarantlius is known to occur. 



The Dunes. — Beginning with the low ridges just back of the 

 upper beach, the dunes rise gradually by broken and irregular 

 ridges and knolls until they terminate abruptly in an elevated 

 ridge, sometimes twenty or more feet above sea-level, which is 

 slowly advancing in places to cover and destroy the dense growth 

 in the marshy strip behind it. The tops of the low outer dunes 

 arc held by several sand-binding grasses, each of which seems to 



