Hobbies And Interests
Coastal Wetland Plant Species
The coastal wetlands have brackish and salt marshes that contain one or more of 10 particular plant species. These species include smooth and giant cordgrass, salt meadow cordgrass, glasswort, black needlerush and saltgrass. Many of these plants form dense colonies along the seashore.
Wetland Cordgrass
Smooth cordgrass flourishes at the outer edges of a salt marsh, while salt meadow cordgrass can be found in the drier salty areas of the marsh. The average size of cordgrass is between one and seven feet tall. Its flat blade-like leaves can grow up to twenty inches in length. Smooth cordgrass is a halophyte, which is a type of plant that has adapted to living in salt water courtesy of specialized cells called "salt glands." These cells excrete salt onto the surface of their stems and leaves where it crystallizes. Smooth cordgrass's other adaptation is a hollow stem that allows oxygen to be moved from the special air pockets called aerenchyma, which is located in the leaves and travels down to the root system.
Black Needlerush and Glasswort
Black needlerush is found in the high marshes in North Carolina. It has thick waxy sharp pointed leaves. The narrow shape and the wax coating on the leaves helps the plant store water. Glasswort or pickleweed has adapted to living in salty soil of marshes by sending salt out to the tips of it's fleshy stems. When too much salt builds up in the tips of the stems, the tips dry up and fall off, thus removing harmful salt from the plant and allowing it to keep precious water.
Pocosins
Pocosins are unique to the southeast coastal region of the United States. They are evergreen shrub bogs with peat substrates. The word "Pocosin" is Algonquin and means "swamps on a hill." Pocosins are the most common type of wetland found in North Carolina. Plants that live in posocins are evergreen shrubs such as the titi, fetterbush, and zenobia, and evergreen trees like the loblolly bay, red bay, and sweet bay.
Coastal Barrier Dunes
Perennial grasses grow on sand dunes. Running beachgrass has a stout stem with wide blue-green colored leaves. American beachgrass can be found growing in dense clumps. It grows upright and has dense cylindrical spikes or seed heads. American beachgrass can grow through four feet of sand by sending out runners, or new shoots of the plant. Seashore elder is a type of small woody shrub that grows on the dunes. It is the only plant, that is not a grass, that can grow on a dune.
Sea Oat
The sea oat is a plant unique to North Carolina's coastal dunes. It's seed head looks like an oat, which gives it its name. Sea oats have tall stems, and their seed heads blow in the ocean breeze serving as food for birds and other creatures that live in the dunes.