In this way beachgrass acts as a wind break, much as a snow fence does in the winter. Not only can beachgrass endure the onslaught of the wind, it also thrives under burial by sand. It responds by growing vigorously up through the sand and by starting new rhizomes as the old ones become buried. The successive layers of rhizomes, with fine roots growing from them, form a tight network that holds sand in place, allowing dunes to grow and stabilize. American beachgrass grows throughout the Great Lakes area and along the Atlantic coast from Maine to North Carolina.
Tall wormwood is a biennial plant that grows scattered among the beachgrass tillers.
It germinates from seed in early summer, producing small, lacy gray-green tufts of vegetative growth as summer progresses. While many individuals succumb to desiccation or burial before fall, some survive to produce tall, bushy stems that bloom late the following summer. Several similar species of wormwood occur on most United States seacoast dunes and throughout the Great Lakes. Tall wormwood is closely related to the ornamental dusty miller, and to the sagebrush of the western plains. Eastern cottonwood, a tree that commonly grows along riverbanks throughout the eastern and midwestern United States, has windblown seeds that are released in June, blanketing the lakeshore area.