An Old-Growth Definition for Sand Pine Forests

Sand pine scrub, Society of American Foresters cover type 69 (Eyre 1980), grows on deep, droughty, infertile sands of marine and aeolian origin. Water and wind formed these features as sea levels fluctuated during past glacial and interglacial periods (Kurz 1942, Laessle 1958, Brooks 1972). Because of washing and sorting during transport and deposition, soil parent material was nearly pure quartz sand (Laessle 1958). This produced soils that are almost exclusively entisols and mostly Quartzipsamments (Myers 1990), typified by the Astatula, Lakeland, Paola, and St. Lucie soil series.