"'^^^^-'K ^ 



PLANT SOCIOLOGY 



INTRODUCTION 



When a decade ago on both sides of the Atlantic the term "plant 

 sociology" emerged and took its place on the records of science — the 

 name was coined much earlier by Krylov and by Paczoski (1896) — the 

 foundation and framework of this new branch of knowledge had already 

 been laid down in broad outlines. Based upon Warming's "oecology" 

 and Schroter's "synecology, " strengthened by increments from 

 neighbor sciences, and vitalized by the suggestive power of new and 

 fruitful ideas, plant sociology has made in a few brief years astounding 

 progress and now looks hopefully forward to the solution of its future 

 problems. 



The term plant sociology (or phytosociology) has been much 

 criticized, especially on etymological grounds. Nevertheless it has 

 quickly become internationally accepted, because it is so expressive 

 and understandable. It may be admitted that there is no close 

 parallelism between plant sociology and the sociology of August Comte. 

 The two have one important point of contact : they are concerned not 

 with the life expression of the individual organism as such but with 

 groups or communities of organisms having more or less equivalent 

 reactions, bound together in mutual dependence. The communal 

 values resulting from the mutual relations of organisms are the social 

 phenomena; the cooperation of organisms is the social process. The 

 community has an existence altogether independent of the individual. 



Starting from this philosophic foundation, we may divide all 

 biology into (1) idiobiology: the science of individual organisms; and 

 (2) sociology: the science of organic communities. 



The latter is divided into the social science of man (sociology in 

 the usual sense), zoosociology, and phytosociology or plant sociology. 



Plant sociology, the science of plant communities or the knowledge 

 of vegetation in the widest sense, includes all phenomena which 

 touch upon the Hfe of plants in social units. 



The present range of sociological investigations in plant science 

 includes five major problems involving the investigation of the follow- 

 ing fundamental communal and environmental relationships, ever 

 present in the plant community: 



1 



