Butterfly

Sand dunes provide a range of habitats for a range of unusual, interesting and characteristic plants that can cope with disturbed habitats.
Very specialised plants are adapted to the accretion of sand, surviving the continual burial of their shoots by sending up very rapid vertical growth. Marram grass, Ammophila arenaria specialises in this, and is largely responsible for the formation and stabilisation of many dunes by binding sand grains together. The sand couch-grass Elytrigia juncea also performs this function on the seaward edge of the dunes, and is responsible, with some other pioneers like the sea rocket Cakile maritima, for initiating the process of dune building by trapping wind blown sand.