ABSTRACT
West Florida has deciduous hardwood forests on loamy upland soils along the Georgia border and evergreen hardwoods nearer the coast. Northeast Florida has headwater wetlands, central lakes with a wide range of natural fertility, evergreen hardwood hammocks on the central ridges, sand pine forests in the Ocala National Forest, wetlands and salty springs along the northward flowing St. Johns River, and coastal salt marshes. Pine forests are often a mosaic of wetland depressions and "islands" of hardwood forests that are interlaced so that the edges of one system blend into the other. The chapter shows where the primary kinds of soils are located in Florida. Because soils are by-products of ecosystems to some extent, soil maps are often similar to vegetation maps. Some soils are uniform without much vertical differentiation into layers. In the Miami area are slightly raised lands of little differentiated substrates of limestone and marl.
