340 CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON. 



and Redfieldia fiexuosa were transferred from the sandhills at Central 

 City to high prairie at Lincoln, and practically all of the prairie domi- 

 nants of the preceding list were reciprocally transplanted to the sand- 

 hills. The majority of these were also transplanted into the mixed 

 prairie at Colorado Springs. 



The care taken to secure ecesis has resulted in the growth of the 

 transferred dominants in the majority of cases, but it must be recog- 

 nized that this is not conclusive as to the origin and constitution of the 

 climax community. The successful transplants demonstrate that the 

 species can grow and reproduce in a new habitat, and at the same time 

 they usually indicate certain differences between the original and the 

 new habitat by the degree of growth and reproduction. Conclusive 

 evidence as to the climax and community position of each dominant 

 must rest upon a complete series of tests from the most decisive, such 

 as merely scattering the seed over the ground, to the planting of seeds, 

 seedlings, and mature plants, protecting seed and plants from rodents 

 and other animals, and watering at critical periods in the life of the 

 seedling or plant. The entire series will also require a definite knowl- 

 edge of the climatic cycle in order that various tests may be tried during 

 the more favorable years. It seems evident that the use of transplant 

 and seed areas must soon come to be regarded as indispensable for 

 adequate vegetation studies, and especially for the certain recognition 

 of climax associations. In fact, objective and final results as to com- 

 munities and principles are possible only by such methods. The 

 indicator value of these studies is obvious, and, when crop plants and 

 phytometers are grown in the transplant inclosures, the results are of 

 the first importance for the recognition of climatic areas and for crop 

 production. 



Indicator Plants, by F. E. Clements. 



The extensive results of several years of indicator study have been 

 brought together in "Plant Indicators," but the intensive results avail- 

 able are still relatively few and scattered. An increase of our exact 

 knowledge depends largely upon instrumental and successional studies, 

 but especially upon phytometer and transplant tests, in which stand- 

 ard plants and dominants are employed as measures and hence as the 

 most accurate of indicators. While the installation of transplant and 

 crop-ecology areas promises much in the way of intensive indicator 

 results in agriculture, it must be recognized that these are to be derived 

 largely as a by-product from the experimental studies of State and 

 National experiment stations and substations. In the case of grazing 

 and forestry, an indicator system of the proper degree of accuracy can 

 only be arrived at from special investigations of the dominants and 

 subdominants of the climaxes concerned. Because it fits in best with 

 other projects under investigation and also promises practical results 



