Bird Island flora 



By Ann Green • Photos by Jeff Otto 



I 



.n the middle of a hot, dry sandy dune on Bird Island, North 

 Carolina Sea Grant researcher Kristen Rosenfeld notices a tiny sprig 

 of vegetation. 



"This is a cool plant," says Rosenfeld, a North Carolina State 

 University graduate student. "It is an herb." 



The sea rocket or Cakile edentual is just one type of plant that 

 Rosenfeld finds while surveying the 1 0-meter square area. She finds 

 five species in this small plot on Bird Island, near the tip of 

 Brunswick County off Sunset Beach. 



'This is a good number for a plot on a beach," says Rosenfeld. 

 'There are not many plants that can live in this harshKenvironment. 

 Plants have to be drought tolerant and tolerant of the salt spray 

 from the ocean and overwash." 



During the past two summers, Rosenfeld has conducted a 

 vegetation survey on Bird Island, the state's newest coastal reserve. 

 In 2002, the state bought the island for $4.2 million from the Price 

 family of Greensboro. 



"The plants give an indication of what the ecosystem is like," 

 says Rosenfeld. "About 1 to 1 5 percent of the beach is covered 

 with vegetation. Preliminary data show that there are more than 

 1 25 plant species on the island." 



One unexpected result was not finding any seabeach amaranth 

 or Amaranthus pumilus, a dune plant that lived on the island until the 

 1 980s, according to Rosenfeld. "We also expected to find a 

 maritime forest, but there is no forested area," she adds. "In fact, 

 there are only a handful of trees on the island." 



In addition to the dune plants, Sea Grant researchers found 

 large grasslands, shrub thickets and salt marshes dominated by 

 smooth cordgrass, Spartina altemiflora. 



"We suspect that the grasslands represent the dunes that once 

 faced the ocean 75 or 1 00 years ago," says Rosenfeld. "This area may 

 give us a clue to what the island was like before any kind of human 

 involvement. It is possible that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' 

 jetty on the South Carolina end of Bird Island has changed the sand 

 and sediment transport and altered the-islantr-shape from round to 

 long and narrow." 



The baseline vegetation survey will help the N.C. Coastal 

 Reserve Program in management, conservation and restoration 

 efforts, according to the study's co-investigator Thomas Wentworth, 

 an NC State botany professor. 



The information also will go into a database for the Carolina 

 Vegetation Survey, a comprehensive compilation of the state's plants 

 and their ecological habitats. The survey likely will take several more 

 years to complete. 



"When completed, the Carolina Vegetation Survey will provide 

 a comprehensive*iventory of the remarkable diversity of natural 

 communities found in North and South Carolina," says Wentworth. 



BIRD ISLAND OVERVIEW 



Spread over nearly 1 ,300 acres, Bird Island is accessible by 

 walking from the western end of Sunset Beach across the former 

 location of Mao 1 Inlet. 



\, Continued 



LEFT: NC State student Rachel Brown carries a flat of seabeach amaranth along the sandy beach at Bird Island. 



COASTWATCH 27 



