Sardinia (Part 2)

There were so many funky plants near the beach that I just had to share some of them.  I figure I'll start with the ones that were planted by the resort, and move to the native flora. 



A cross between a palm tree and a succulent?


This plant grew in great giant bushes covered with these fuzzy-looking red flowers.  


 Now for the stuff growing in the rocks and the sand down by the water.


This one looked like a living fractal growing out of crevices between the rocks.  



It was hard to get a picture of this plant with a good sense of scale, but those thorns are an average of 2 inches long and the plants were around 5-6 feet tall.  


This spiky little plant was growing out of the sand right on the beach.   Even the baby plants are hard and spiky as I found out when I accidentally sat on a sproutling with a single leaf.


There were lots of these little lizards all over the place, though they were easier to spot out sunning themselves on the sunny days.  I actually came pretty near to stepping on a snake that was also out sunning on the path.  Sucker was 3-4 feet long and an inch or so in diameter.  If I had to guess from the green coloring, I'd say it probably wasn't poisonous.  I didn't see it until the snake headed back to the cover of the rocks to avoid my feet.



And the final entry in stuff I've never seen before are these little 'beach balls.'  They came in every size between golf ball and soft ball.  Even the large ones weighed almost nothing, no more than an ounce.  They're just little balls of beach fluff collecting on the beach. 
As for what they're made of, if you've ever really looked at a palm tree, you've probably noticed the little fluffy stuff that the larger fronds grow out of.  These balls appear to consist of that fluffy stuff felted into balls by the ocean waves. 

From Sardegna