BOOKS AND CURRENT LITERATURE 



Plant Succession. — Clements^ has devoted many years to the sub- 

 ject of the recognition, classification, and development of vegetation 

 types, especially in the central and western portions of the United 

 States. The book under review is based on field work and is an elabo- 

 ration of the ideas already published in his paper on "Development 

 and Structure of Vegetation" (Report of the Botanical Survey of 

 Nebraska, No. 7, 1904). In it the author carries even further his 

 analogy between the development of the vegetation and the develop- 

 ment of the individual plant. He also applies the ecological method 

 to the study of paleobotany. The system of classification here pro- 

 posed, while based to some extent on the work of ecologists and plant 

 geographers, is in its application almost entirely new. The analogy 

 between the life history of a formation and the life history of an indi- 

 vidual plant is the basis of the present book, for the succession within 

 the' formation and the development of the individual plant are re- 

 garded as analogous. 



This book is an extended rather than a concise statement of the 

 subject of plant succession. Into it is brought an immense amount of 

 material from the related sciences, physiography, geology and meteor- 

 ology. One who knows little of the subject will be confused by the 

 mass of detail and by the introduction of a large number of new tech- 

 nical terms. Ecologists, foresters and other students of vegetation 

 will find a critical reading most stimulating. Almost every paragraph 

 suggests unsolved problems, although it is not always clear from the 

 text which problems are still unsolved. To students of vegetation it 

 represents a decided advance over the author's earlier works. Climax 

 and development units are brought into a single system, of which the 

 proposed terminology is complex enough to force difficult decisions, 

 if not years of investigation, to determine the status of the community 

 and the proper term to be applied. 



The discussion of the effect of the plant community on the ph3-sical 

 condition of the habitat is somewhat general and some of the conclu- 



' Clements, F. E. Plant Succession: An Analysis of the Development of 

 Vegetation. Pp. xiii + 512; pis. 61. Carnegie Inst. Wash. Pubn. 242, 1916. 



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