i6o THE PLANT WORLD. 



in the organism confirmed when he reads that certain Javan species 

 which are most abundant, as epiphytes on the tallest trees of the 

 rain-forests, where they are exposed to strong light and to compara- 

 tively dry air, recur under conditions which are topographicfilly very 

 different but phsiologically very similar — i. c. growing terrestrially 

 on the sand strand and about sulphur springs in the mountains. A 

 remarkable activity in this line of investigation is being manifested 

 to-day, especially in the Germanic and Scandinavian countries of 

 Europe, where the literature of the subject is fast becoming volumin- 

 ous; but also this country, which offers to the student of ecology a 

 field hardly to be surpassed in richness and variety. 



Not the least important of the functions of ecological plant geo- 

 graphy is the description and illustration of the plant-covering of 

 each region, as distinguished from the systematic classification of its 

 flora. That is to say, the making of word pictures of vegetation, 

 such as we expect from the intelligent explorer of a little known 

 country, but with the detail and scientific accuracy which the practiced 

 botanist should be able to bring to the work. Of the plant-covering 

 of North America as it actually occurs in forest and meadow, on 

 beach and cliff, in marsh and stream, we have few satisfactory pic- 

 tures. It should be the task of each student of a local flora, no 

 matter how well known he may fancy his particular region to be, to 

 present such a picture. It will never be a fruitless task, for in no 

 other way can he obtain a true idea of the actual associations of the 

 plants among themselves, of their relationships to their physical and 

 organic surroundings, of their habits and mode of life, in short, of 

 their manner of "house-keeping."* 



In conclusion, I would urge upon teachers the immense value of 

 this kind of botanical work in awakening in the minds of students a 

 real and vivid interest in the plant world about them, an interest 

 which herborizing and laboratory work alone can rarely induce. 

 Ecology seeks to answer two questions, " Why?" and " How?" — ques- 

 tions that are always in the mouth of the young student of science, 

 but are sometimes lost sight of by older ones. 



♦Ecology (pikos, a house, logos, science. — is, literally, the science of house-keeping). 



The usual habitat of the Wild Columbine, Aqtiilegia Canadensis^ 

 is well known to be rich, rocky woods. Mr. D. LeRoy Topping, of 

 Washington, states that he has found it growing abundantly in 

 Central New York in a low, moist meadow. Can our readers supply 

 additional notes on this'interesting question of plant habitat ? — Charles 

 L, Pollard. 



