SD2: Honkenya peploides-Cakile maritima strandline community

Summary

Synonymy

Strand plants association Tansley 1911; Foreshore communities Tansley 1939; Salsola kali-Atriplex glabriuscula Association Tx. 1950; Atriplici-Polygonetum raii Tx. 1950; Cakile maritima-sociatie Boerboom 1960; Sociation à Salsola kali Géhu & Géhu 1969; Sociatie van Honkenya peploides Westhoff & den Held 1969; Honkenietum peploidis Géhu & Géhu 1969.

Constant species

Cakile maritima, Honkenya peploides.

Rare species

Polygonum oxyspermum ssp. raii.

Physiognomy

The Honkenya peploides-Cakile maritima community occurs as patchy strips of strandline vegetation in which Honkenya peploides, Cakile maritima and various Atriplex spp. are the most consistent elements. Honkenya is a perennial and low clumps of its succulent, creeping shoots can be a conspicuous feature here all the year round, being firmly anchored in the sandy gravel substrate, able to accumulate a little wind-blown sand and tolerant of the very occasional, brief inundations by seawater that come with extreme high tides and winter storms. Other characteristic species are more ephemeral, but they too can become abundant in summer, especially where organic detritus has been deposited along the tidal limit or incorporated beneath a shallow covering of beach material, and they may give a distinctive appearance to particular stretches of the community. Among these annuals, Cakile is very frequent and sometimes plentiful and there is usually one or other, or a mixture, of the common Atriplex spp. of strandline habitats, quite often in locally dense populations which have sometimes been treated as the basis of separate vegetation types (e.g. Birse 1980).