Vegetation
The vegetation of the Outer Banks is varied. In the northeast part of the Outer Banks from Virginia Beach southward past the North Carolina border to Oregon Inlet, the main types of vegetation are sea grasses, beach grasses and other beach plants including Opuntia humifusa on the Atlantic side and Wax Myrtles, bays, and grasses on the Sound side with areas of pine and Spanish Moss-covered Live Oaks. Yucca aloifolia can be found growing wild here in the northern parts of its range on the beach. Cabbage palmetto was once indigenous to the entire Outer Banks, and it is still successfully planted and grown.
From Cape Hatteras National Seashore southward, the vegetation includes that of the northeastern Outer Banks. Cabbage palmetto, Sabal minor on the beach, and Yucca aloifolia which can be found in the north, although they are native and more commonly found in the southern part of the Outer Banks. Pindo palms and Windmill Palms are also planted widely throughout the Outer Banks although they are not indigenous to the area.
A wide variety of native plants can be found at the Elizabethan Gardens in Manteo on Roanoke Island. The gardens are open year round, 7 days a week.
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Famous quotes containing the word vegetation:
“I would not have every man nor every part of a man cultivated, any more than I would have every acre of earth cultivated: part will be tillage, but the greater part will be meadow and forest, not only serving an immediate use, but preparing a mould against a distant future, by the annual decay of the vegetation which it supports.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“We love to see any redness in the vegetation of the temperate zone. It is the color of colors. This plant speaks to our blood.... What a perfect maturity it arrives at! It is the emblem of a successful life concluded by a death not premature, which is an ornament to Nature. What if we were to mature as perfectly, root and branch, glowing in the midst of our decay, like the poke!”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“When the ground was partially bare of snow, and a few warm days had dried its surface somewhat, it was pleasant to compare the first tender signs of the infant year just peeping forth with the stately beauty of the withered vegetation which had withstood the winter ... decent weeds, at least, which widowed Nature wears.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)