Vegetation of the sand country bordering the Waitakere Range, Auckland: the southern beaches.

[First paragraph(s)...]
Along the western margin of the North Island there is a broken strip of sand country totalling 480 km in length—more than half the coastline (excluding the deeper harbours). As well as being a significant part of the coastal landscape, beaches are important areas for recreation because of their extent, location and topography. With the spread of commercial forestry onto coastal sand and the development of many beaches as holiday resorts, the character of the sand country is changing rapidly. This paper describes the vegetation not yet grossly modified at the mouth of the Manukau Harbour (Figs 1 and 2).