Patterns in vegetation and seed rain were measured in an abandoned agricult
ural scrubland/forest system in lowland Canterbury to test relationships be
tween patterns of seed rain and succession in seral scrub and established l
ow forest. indicator species analysis separated four distinct vegetation ty
pes which formed a successional chronosequence confirmed by air-photo inter
pretation and analysis of vegetation composition. Vegetation biomass (appro
ximated by summed species importance scores) and species richness (mean spe
cies plot(-1)) both increased with successional stage. Although there was a
significant difference in seed rain density among vegetation types, the re
lationship between seed rain and succession was clouded by individual speci
es fecundity. There was a significant positive relationship between success
ional stage and seed rain species richness. The proportion of seed species
present in seed rain but absent from extant vegetation was greater in less
advanced vegetation. This relationship was determined by low species richne
ss in the vegetation and a suite of highly mobile seed species, typical of
more mature forest, common to all vegetation types. We conclude that forest
recovery is not dispersal limited in the forest and seral scrub vegetation
we investigated, and that with the continued absence of grazing pressure f
orest recovery should be rapid.