We analyzed the associativity of 15 main tree species that have a higher important value in the Phoebe bournei natural secondary forest using the variance ratio (VR) test, χ²-test for 2
2 contingency table and Spearman's rank correlation coefficient. Meanwhile, we explored the correlation between Phoebe bournei from different growing periods and other tree layer species. The main results were as follows：（1）The overall association showed no significantly positive correlation among the 15 tree species, which meant that most of the species in the community were distributed independently. The ratio of positive to negative association of 105 tree species-pairs was 0.91 with a significant rate of 9.25%.（2）Using diameter at breast height (DBH), Phoehe bournei was divided into three growth periods such as big tree (DBH≥20 cm), middle tree (10 cm ≤ DBH<20 cm) and small tree (5 cm≤DBH<10 cm). The ratio of positive to negative association between Phoehe bournei in three growth periods and other 105 tree species-pairs was 0.86, 0.76 and 0.69, with the significant rate of 11.43%, 8.75% and 5.71%, respectively, indicating that the interspeci?c association and significant rate of the middle tree was lower than that of the big tree, but higher than the small ones. Based on the above analysis results, it?would?be concluded?that the interspecific association between different species was loose and the forest community was in an unstable developing stage.