Flahault: Phytogeographic Nomenclature 399 



may give rise to errors, for those unaquainted with them might 

 deem it possible to correlate them with a form of vegetation of 

 another country. It is necessary then in botanic geography to 

 mistrust translations and not fear to adopt the name of a station 

 which has been furnished us by the indigenous language. 



The conception of Savannah as adopted and popularized by our 

 travelers comprises, it appears, varied stations, that the ignorance 

 of botanic geography alone makes confusing. It is important 

 then to accept indigenous names as having a geographic value 



* 



where their exact synonym is not known in one's own language. 



The polar Tundra, the Siberian Taiga, the Myrar of the Swiss, 

 the Watten of the coast of the North Sea, the Llanos, carrascos, 

 campos, potreiros and pinhals of Brazil, the scrub of Australia have 

 no equivalent in our language and these names have the same claim 

 for preservation as our garigues and maquis. 



It even happens (and this is the case in our own French lan- 

 guage) that far from it being necessary to translate words given to 

 natural features in other languages, the admitted classic vocabu- 

 lary is not sufficient to explain facts and phenomena which are ex- 

 hibited in a country, or the objects which are there encountered. 

 In contrast with other languages which are profoundly penetrated 

 by the poetry of nature, resulting from the constant contact of 

 man with nature, our own, however literary and erudite, orig- 

 inating in the salons where polished society formerly gathered, has 

 no words to express that which it has not known. It is from our 

 old language that the words garigue and maquis have come. 

 Sansouire, Ernie, Casse, Camp as have been acquired from ancient 

 dialects. They express things of which our literature has no idea. 

 It is proper to so enrich our language. 



In finishing the nomenclature of geographic and topographic 

 units only a few words remain to be said to express the more or 

 less parallel bands which different vegetations follow when they 

 are superimposed in the altitudinal sense. 



If a certain parallelism in climate exists between the regions 

 which extend from the equator to the poles and that of mountains 

 considered from their base to their summit, it is now known that this 

 parallelism depends only upon the temperature of the air. There- 

 fore there is no need for them to be confused. Now in France, 



