ITS OLAF GALL0E 



absolute agreement as regards a fixed terminology for the naming 

 of the different kinds of soil, and in addition, if it were possible, 

 out in the Held, immediately to identify to which category the soil 

 belonged which supported the association we were just then in- 

 vestigating, then it would be an excellent method consistently to 

 name the association after the soil. But this cannot be done, owing 

 to the nature of the subject. There does not exist, and will hardly 

 ever be created, any descriptive soil-term, which will win universal 

 acceptance. Nor will it ever be possible, out in the field to identify 

 each kind of soil with any certainty. This requires thorough chemical 

 and physical investigations, which must be made in the laboratory. 

 It appears to be far easier to name the association after the 

 dominant plants, when such occur. A beech wood is easy to 

 recognize as such, but a "fell-field" (rocky-flat) a "mat-herbage" 

 (herb-flat) which are not characterized by any one individual species, 

 how are we to know them? 



Here we find ourselves in reality placed before a fundamental 

 question in ecology, - the definition and naming of the plant- 

 association: partly, how we shall precisely define the individual 

 association, so that it is recognizable wherever it may be met with 

 on the surface of the earth, and may be determined, at any rate, 

 with as great certainty as we determine a systematic species: and 

 partly, how we shall name it, after the soil, or after dominant 

 species of plant, or perhaps after dominant "growth-forms" (see 

 Warming and Raunkiaer). 



On this question, first and foremost the founder of ecology, E. 

 Warming, and afterwards C. Raunkiaer, have contended that 

 the associations ought to be analyzed with regard to "growth-forms." 

 so that we may thereby define them. What we shall afterwards 

 call them is a point of less importance, as different names for 

 the same association may be used synonymously, even although a 

 uniform nomenclature would facilitate the survey considerably 

 when we are occupying ourselves with the systemalising of the as- 

 sociations. 



Which classification of the growth-forms of the plant-world we 

 are to use, must be dependent on the object we have in view in 

 the investigation of the associations. In itself there is nothing to 

 prevent our using several different classifications in the same in- 

 vestigation, for instance, we could enumerate the "geophytes," "hemi- 

 cryptophytes," "chamsephytes," etc. (according to Raunkiser's clas- 



