Sea rocket grows only on sandy beaches and is quite uncommon on the eastern shore. It has thick fleshy leaves and tiny white flowers with four petals. In some years after a strong wind, the beach will contain narrow lines of seedlings of many plants not particularly adapted to beach living. These plants are fun to explore even though they are generally gone within a few weeks. The beachgrass community changes growing conditions on the sand it occupies and on the interior dunes behind it.
Plants shade the surface, moderating temperature fluctuations and moisture availability.
Leaves that drop each year decompose and release plant nutrients. Moving sand falls as wind velocity drops, so both wind speed and sand movement decrease behind the first dune. Terrain is rolling on the interior dunes, with damp swales and dry secondary dunes, and some blowout areas where sand is still moving. Dominants of this community are common, widely distributed plants that live together in an uncommon arrangement on the dunes. Cottonwoods, still the only trees in evidence, are clumped on the tops of the secondary dunes.