750 A CENTURY OF PROGRESS IN THE NATURAL SCIENCES 



meant that the world vegetation and its distribution, which previously had been, 

 as it has been expressed, matters for wonder but not for speculation, could now 

 be, and indeed had to be, restudied from the point of view of the new theory, 

 and a vast new field thus opened. Plant geography had, in short, to be trans- 

 lated into the new idiom. In this way the whole subject developed so quickly 

 that only the most prominent features of its history can be noticed in one 

 short paper. 



It is very obvious from a study of botanical literature in general that the 

 characteristics of different nations and peoples express themselves as much in 

 their methods of scientific inquiry and in their predilection for certain aspects 

 of their subjects as they do in many other ways. A philosopher could probably 

 explain convincingly why it was that the German school of botanists almost at 

 once made the newly opened fields so particularly their own, quickly reaching 

 in them a preeminence which they maintained for many years. If an explanation 

 is to be hazarded here, it is that this next phase of the subject was necessarily 

 one of bringing some sort of order out of an enormous and rapidly accumulating 

 mass of data, and that this was work which called for just those qualities of 

 application, industry, and organization that are such strong German national 

 features. 



The first, and in some ways the greatest, of these German publications was 

 Grisebaeh's Vegetation der Erde (1884), which first appeared in 1871, then in 

 an enlarged edition in 1884. This may almost be described as the first full-scale 

 attempt to give a coherent single description of the vegetation of the whole 

 world and to classify it floristically, and the best compliment that can be paid 

 it is to say that it is still an extremely valuable source of basic information. 

 Indeed, the most striking thing about it now is how little it has been rendered 

 obsolete by subsequent increase in our knowledge, and one can only be surprised 

 that so authoritative and complete an account could be prepared at that com- 

 paratively early date. Actually, as the preface to the first edition says, the book 

 is a synthesis of studies extending over thirty-five years, and thus is partly pre- 

 Darwinian, as is evidenced by the stress laid on temperature as a distributional 

 factor. This emphasis derives from de Candolle, and is partly Darwinian, as is 

 shown by its clear expression of the evolutionary conception of adaptation to 

 environment. It must also be borne in mind that this book dates from a time 

 when the distinction between floristic and vegetational studies had scarcely 

 begun to be made, and it would perhaps be fairer to regard it as an early essay 

 in what later became distinguished as plant ecology (it contains, for instance, 

 one of the first classifications of growth form), though it also includes much 

 direct information about the spatial distribution of plants. A contemporary 

 study more definitely developmental in outlook was the briefer early work of 

 Engler which is often referred to as the Versuch (1872-1882). 



The mention of Engler, who was, within the scope of his interests, one of the 

 greatest of all German botanists, brings to mind another gradual divergence 

 of subjects such as is inevitable with the passage of time and the growth of 

 material. The study of plant geography must always rest largely on the devoted 

 work of the taxonomists. In earlier days the two fields were almost parts of one 

 whole, but later taxonomy came to absorb nearly all the energies of its chief 

 practitioners. This is true of both Hooker and Engler, whose careers have many 



