There are no plants hearty enough to survive right at the water's edge on a high-energy beach. The tremendous force of wave impacts, combined with the constantly shifting sands and changing cycle of high and low tides, keep this area devoid of any plant life. Just above the area of shoreline typically flooded by the highest tides of the year is the dune face or foredune. Here we can see several types of plants which have taken root. The most conspicuous of these are sea oats.
Sea oats are excellent colonizing plants.
They are capable of rapidly putting out new roots when portions of their lower stem become covered with drifting sand. There are other colonizer plants that live with the sea oats on the foredune. Plants that inhabit the foredune play a very important role in stabilizing the shifting sands of the dune. It is largely through the stabilizing influence of the pioneering species that the other vegetation zones eventually develop.