From the Objectives (p.7)... 'The objectives of this study were: (1) to quantitatively analyze the vegetation of the well-drained sandhills together with some of their respective environmental factors, (2) to determine the environmental conditions which may tend to influence the individual component species within the community and the community as a whole, and (3) to offer a possible explanation for the variation in different sandhill community types.' From the Summary (p.49-50)... 'The sandhill communities for the most part, are a widely divergent range of plant associations adapted for growth and reproduction on sandy well-drained areas, usually poor in nutrients. In all cases succession appears to be progressing from a dominance of longleaf pine and/or turkey oak to that of mesophytic hardwoods. The longleaf pine-turkey oak sandhill is merely a vegetational response to a particular set of environmental conditions, with fire as the prime factor. Three pathways exist for the development of a bare sandhill site to progress towards the final hardwood hammock, and each is governed by a defined distinction in the pyric influences. With respect to all individual environmental factors, there may exist a tremendous overlap among the various subunits and related communities, which may all occur on poor, sandy, well-drained sites. Turkey oak is the one tree which appears to be wholly adapted to these areas in the early stages of succession and is usually limited there unto. Most all other species, with the exception of longleaf pine, are able to be established only when the original rigorous xeric conditions and nutrient levels have been modified in some manner. Longleaf pine may be established only under a specific set of circumstances which shift the ecological balance to its favor. Foremost of these circumstances, is the frequency and intensity of fire with all its ramifications on a given site at a given time. Turkey oak is also maintained by fire but in a different manner than for longleaf pine. The other individual tree species which may appear in the sandhills, tend to be influenced by the soil moisture properties and to a lesser extent by fertility. Only five tree and/or shrub species appear to dominate areas with low moisture equivalents, with the other species making their appearance as the community becomes more mesic. The presence of sand pine on sandhill sites may be considered nothern more than an ecological novelty of very little significance in altering the estalished patterns of the respective successions.'