ECOLOGY. 343 



desert on the other. About 1,000 transplants, representing approximately 

 150 species and minor forms, have been made along this line and between 

 California and Colorado. Special attention has been given to the preparation 

 of the plants for transport, to the season of transfer, to the accuracy and 

 thoroughness of vouchers and records, and to the protection of the trans- 

 plants. Through the generous cooperation of certain landowners and the 

 Government, it has been possible to inclose most of the California stations 

 with permanent fences. When this was not feasible, as in the case of scattered 

 plants, the experiments were located where least subject to injury from grazing 

 animals or vandals. 



The results of the year in the transplant gardens at Pike's Peak, especially 

 with respect to reciprocal and variation transplants, have been carefully 

 studied and new methods developed. In addition, a new alpine garden has 

 been established for community transplants, in which actual meter quadrats 

 of representative communities have been transferred from the alpine to the 

 montane zone. An adaptation sequence has been organized in a series of 3 

 light values of approximately .07, .03, and .01, for the purpose of obtaining 

 the complete response of stable and plastic heliophytes to shade and deter- 

 mining the limits of both adjustment and adaptation. In the hope of 

 securing further evidence as to the effect of major climatic cycles, the most 

 important dominants and subdominants of the mixed prairie at 6,000 feet 

 have been transplanted to different altitudes to determine the limits of 

 successful ecesis. 



The Phylogenetic Method in Taxonomy, by F. E. Clements and H. M. Hall. 

 In order to emphasize the basic importance of phylogeny for taxonomic 

 studies, monographs have been prepared of the North American species of 3 

 important genera, namely, Artemisia, Chrysothamnus, and Atriplex. The 

 manuscript for these, together with a statement of principles and methods, 

 has been completed, after several years of intensive field, garden, and herbarium 

 studies, and submitted for publication. In addition to supplying much needed 

 revisions of these economic groups, this contribution is designed to illustrate 

 new or little-used methods of taxonomic research, especially the combination 

 of field experiment and statistical studies and the introduction of exact 

 quantitative criteria wherever possible. The attempt to express results in 

 the most intelligible and useful form has emphasized the necessity of a species 

 concept quite at variance with that of many present-day taxonomists. The 

 category of subspecies is used for the major divisions of the species, while 

 the still smaller units — ecads, mutants, races, biotypes, jordanons, etc. — 

 are described only as numbered minor variations, since it is recognized that 

 the naming of these is of value only to the extreme specialist. The number 

 of such variations is so overwhelming that an attempt to name them all leads 

 only to confusion, and the recognition of only a portion of them is illogical 

 and futile. Moreover, their proper classification must await a close ecologic 

 and genetic analysis, an undertaking not warranted at the present time. 

 The phylogeny of the species and subspecies as now understood is graphically 

 illustrated by a series of diagrams on which the principal differentiating 

 characters are also indicated. These charts are so designed as to show the 

 grouping of the smaller units into progressively larger ones, and they thus 

 exhibit the degree of relationship between any two forms. 



