The Grass That Holds the Coast

Look at the dunes as we go — those rolling hills of white sand — and notice the tall, graceful grass growing all over them, waving in the sea breeze, tipped in late summer with heavy golden seed heads that catch the light. That's sea oats, and humble as it looks, that plant is the reason there's a coast here at all. Let me give it its due.

A sand dune, left to itself, is just a pile of loose sand — the wind would scatter it and the sea would wash it flat in a season. What holds a dune together, what lets it grow tall enough to shield the whole coast behind it, is roots. And sea oats are the great dune-builder. They send roots down and sideways through the sand, a hidden net that binds the whole dune together, and they actually catch the blowing sand, trapping it, so the dune grows taller around them. Every big protective dune on this coast was, in a sense, knitted together by sea oats.

Which makes that grass just about the most valuable plant on the beach — because those dunes are what stand between the storms and everything behind them. When a hurricane comes, a healthy, well-rooted dune line soaks up the surge and the waves and saves the houses and the road behind it. Lose the sea oats, and the dunes go, and then the coast itself starts to wash away.

That's why it is against the law — flat-out illegal, with real fines — to pick sea oats or trample them here and all along the Gulf. It looks like just decorative beach grass. It's actually the coast's own bones and armor, growing quietly in the sand. So admire it, photograph it, but leave it be. Every stalk of it is holding a little more of Alabama in place against the sea.