Is it possible for plants to grow in sand alone?

Plants can grow in just about any medium, as long as they have water and nutrients. The problem with growing in sand, however, is the lack of water and nutrients.

Sand does not hold water the way other soils will. Sand contains practically no organic material, so there is not much in it for plants to use for nourishment. Nor does it grow the fungus species that make nutrients available to roots.

As you can see at a beach or in a sand desert, some plant species have evolved to handle these conditions, usually by sending roots down far enough to find water, or by growing very fast whenever there is a rain, or by absorbing the rainwater quickly and storing it for future use. They can only survive if there are enough nutrients mixed into the sand. Pure sand will not do.