Flora of the State Park, Orient, Long Island, N. Y. 



Roy I. a i ii \m 



Long Beach, Orient, Long Island, the site of a new State 

 Park, is a peninsula connected at the easterly end with the main 

 body of Orient and thence extending in a westerly direction for 

 approximately three miles between Gardiner's Bay on the south 

 and Little Bay, Eagle Neck channel, Long Beach Bay, Peter's 

 Neck channel and Peconic Bay on the north. The tract ter- 

 minates on the west in a sandy spit known as Long Beach bar. 

 On this point is situated one of the largest tern colonies in the 

 state, where two species breed, the Common and Roseate Tern. 



The approach to the park from the east is a narrow beach 

 between two bays. This beach is vegetated by clumps of sand- 

 reed, Ammophila arenaria, dwarf, prostrate shrubs of beach 

 plum, Primus maritima, red cedar, Juniperus virginiana, spurge, 

 Chamaesyce polygonifolia, and various other maritime weeds, 

 principally adventive. Along the Little Bay margin, on the 

 west, occur salt-marsh spurry, Tissa marina, glasswort, Sali- 

 cornia, and a rank growth of smooth salt marsh-grass Spartina 

 stricta. This approach to the park has been elevated by loam 

 and the causeway has altered or obliterated many of the natu- 

 ral conditions on this neck. 



The park proper broadens in series of westerly ridges of 

 sand and gravel; between these ridges are depressions of salt 

 marshes and salt water ponds. About midway of the length is a 

 narrow neck of beach known as the Narrows. The two sections 

 are known locally as East and West Long Beach. The larger of 

 the ponds in the east section is known as the East Pond and 

 the largest in the west section as the West Pond. The interesting 

 ruins of a fertilizer factory, which operated in the eighties, lie 

 between the West Pond and the tern colony. 



Parallel with the Gardiner's Bay shore on the south is a 

 higher level of beach sand and gravel. The characteristic flora 

 on this southerly exposure are beach sandwort, Honkenya 

 peploides, wild pink, Silene caroliniana, beach pea, Lathyrus 

 maritmus, wild rose, Rosa virginiana, false heather, Iludsonia 

 tomentosa, beach pin-weed, Lechea maritima, coast jointweed, 

 Polygonella articulata, Primus maritima, poison ivy, Toxico- 



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