Analyses of geology, geomorphology, sedimentolo，geochemistry and geochronology allow us to classify the variegated clays (as one of the vermicular red earth, we may call it the “like vermicular red earth,”) which had formed in different period along the coast of South China (areas to south of the Nanling Mountains) into two types: the weathering crust of bedrock and the weathering crust of unconsolidated sediments, and identify the variegated clays in the Quaternary unconsolidated sediment sequence with 3 pedogenesis stages: the early stage, which ranges approximately from 1.8 to 1.6 Ma BP, the middle stage, approximately from 1.0 to 0.8 Ma BP, and the late stage, approximately from 0.07 to 0.01 Ma BP. Our present paper primarily focuses on the problems and differences of horizons, profile texture and geochronology between the best developed, thickest and most widely distributed variegated clays with the age of 1.0 to 0.8 Ma BP in the coastal South China and the typical reticulate red clays in the Yangtse River valley and the southwestern hill areas of China. Moreover, we suggest that some important scientific problems, such as the pedogenises laws of variegated clays and reticulate red clays, the development-evolution intensity and laws of the weathering, and their signification to indicate the geological and climatic evolution in southern parts of China, will be awaited to research further.