Grove Koger
On our recent visit to Florida’s St. George Island, we made a point of paying closer attention to aspects of the island that we hadn’t given much thought to before. And in sea oats—a tall variety of grass growing on the island’s sand dunes—we found a tiny universe thriving in what, to us, are harsh conditions.
First of all, let me explain that St. George Island is a narrow, 28-mile-long barrier island off the coast of Florida’s panhandle that we’ve visited almost every year since 1999. While its eastern end is a state park, a long stretch farther west is given over to private residences, many of whose owners rent their homes to vacationers like us.
Aside from staring out to sea and swimming (and fishing, if you’re so inclined), there’s not much to “do” on St. George—which is one of its attractions. Its wide, white Gulf-side beaches extend for virtually its entire length, and the opportunities they offer the observant are generous. We usually spot porpoises midmorning as they swim up and down the coast just beyond the sand bars, as well as pelicans and ospreys and several species of shore birds. If we sit still enough, we notice the furtive movements of sand-colored ghost crabs as they venture sideways out of their holes in search of food, their black eyes, standing as they do on tiny stalks, looking remarkably like quotation marks cast adrift. And of course there’s the ever-changing spectacle of the sea and the sky.
But what we haven’t paid much attention to, since they’re behind us as we sit gazing out to sea, are the numerous stands of sea oats (Uniola paniculate) that dot the higher dunes behind us. The stalks of these perennial grasses can grow higher than 6 feet and their thin, sword-like leaves more than a foot in length. Sea oats catch and hold wind-blown sand, stabilizing the dunes and encouraging their growth. As the sand accumulates, it actually stimulates the growth of the plants themselves, while below the surface, they spread their rhizomes (underground stems) widely while sending their roots down as far as 40 feet, providing even greater stability. As you might guess, sea oats tolerate heat and salinity well, and the islands’ songbirds are fond of their seeds. Along with widely spreading beach morning glories (which you can see in the photograph at the top of today’s post), they’re the most common plant we see as we approach the water.
The Coastal Resources Division of Georgia’s Department of Natural Resources calls sea oats “the most important and widespread grass on southern coastal dunes,” and they’re a protected species in Georgia as well as North Carolina, South Carolina, and Florida itself. Without them and the dunes they do so much to stabilize, the tropical storms that routinely strike the states’ coasts would do even more damage than they do already.
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