MR. W. WEST: ECOLOGICAL NOTES. 51 
Ecological Notes ; chiefly Cryptogamic. 
By the late \Упллдм West, F.L.S. 
[Read 18th June, 1914.] 
Ата meeting of the Botanical Section of the British Association at Cambridge 
in 1904, after the reading of several ecological papers, Professor A. Engler 
commented on the paucity or almost total absence of any ecological work 
with regard to cryptogams, and to ту mind his remarks were justified, as 
whatever observations had already been made, little had been published, and 
that by few workers. Since then very little ecological work has been 
published on the cellular plants of the British Isles compared with that 
concerning the vascular ones, if we except a few recent papers. 
When one sets out with open eyes in a good district far away from the 
influence of the smoke of towns or cities, one is at once struck by the wealth 
of the eryptogamie flora, especially if the place is in the montane zone, and 
far more so if inthe alpiue. The richness is moreover intensified if the sea 
is near, and more so still on the Western coast, on account of the Atlantic 
influence and the abundant rainfall. Supposing one enters a montane wood 
in spring, one finds the rocks and stones covered with cellular cryptogams, 
the tree-trunks are also often partially or almost entirely covered, and usually 
where parts of them at first seem bare, these portions generally reveal on 
closer inspection a more or less complete covering of crustaceous lichens. 
Even the soil between the abutting rocks often shows a greater wealth of 
cellular than of vascular plants. If one turns out of the wood and examines 
a hilly pasture, its most conspicuous feature is often its richness in mosses, 
but when examined at a later period when the vascular plants are at their 
best, the mosses are usually overlooked. If one then examines the walls, a 
mass of cellular eryptogams is again met with as the most conspicuous 
feature. 
The best time for noting the cellular eryptogamic undergrowth in woods 
and that on the branches of the trees is in spring before the buds unfold. 
By examining the branches blown off the trees during storms, and also those 
of felled trees, the associations on the upper branches can be readily ascer- 
tained. Much of it escapes one's vision if the examination takes place in 
summer or autumn, when the leaves are on the trees and the herbaceous 
vascular plants are in full vigour. 
The following associations are selected from a large number I have noted 
during the last three or four decades. 
A glance at the corticole associations of trees will serve as a beginning 
but many more observations will be required before these associations can 
LINN, JOURN.—BOTANY, VOL. XLIII. F 
