The south-east hilly region of Hubei Province, located at the middle and lower reaches of Yangtze-river, is an ecologically degraded and frail area that needs to be restored and conserved. Chinese sweet gum (Liquidambar formasana) forest and pine (Pinus massonaina)-sweet gum mixed forest are two main forest types in this region. To reveal the vegetation restoration mechanism of this region, a study on regeneration and succession was conducted in these two forest types. The results indicated that: (1) the difference of species composition between the two forest types was significant; (2) in pine-sweet gum mixed forest, the pine population was a cohort aged from 25 to 30 years, which could be taken as a maturing population, while the sweet gum population could be viewed as an increasing population. At the same time, sweet gum population in the sweet gum forest could be a decreasing population, because there were no seedlings under their own canopy. (3)seedlings regeneration study of 4 dominant tree species (pine, Chinese sweet gum，Dyetree (Platycarya strobilacea) and Wild Siris (Albizzia julibrissin) ) showed that: ① there was no inter-species association in each pair of the 4 species, except that pine and Dyetree showed a significantly negative association(p≤0.05); ② the distribution pattern of Chinese sweet gum changed gradually from clump to random pattern with growth, while the other 3 species always showed a clump distribution pattern; ③the seedlings of the 4 species showed different growth patterns: the main branch growth increment of Dyetree and Wild Siris seedlings decreased earlier than that of pine and Chinese sweet-gum. In conclusion, in the south-east hilly region of Hubei Province, there was a tendency that sweet gum would take the place of pine, while the succession of sweet gum forest was a question for further study.