COMMITTEE OF BRITISH ASSOCIATION. l8l 



<:ompared with those taken in another, and similar. Thus a general list of plants 

 representative of the association or area is finally arrived at. In a similar way 

 are built up the lists of plants for all associations, and information obtained 

 concerning their biological conditions. 



*' It will readily be seen that by our methods the plant species inhabiting a 

 district are arranged in the associations as they are actually found, and not, as 

 is almost invariably the case in local floras, in the groupings of the Natural 

 Orders. In certain ways this alternative point of view is very advantageous, 

 ^like to the beginner whom it is sought to interest in Nature study as to the 

 maturer naturalist, who can find in the solution of oecological problems motive 

 for endless study and enjoyment. There is a danger of thinking that the robbing 

 ji countryside of its rarest plants, to be carried home, dried, labelled, and buried 

 in sheets of jxaper, is the beginning and end of botany. The present method 

 puts no premium on this ; the commoner plants are the most observed, and yet 

 there is a place in our scheme for the rarest. By regarding the trees, shrubs, 

 flowers, grasses, mosses and moulds as individuals of one community, dependent 

 in a variety of ways upon one another, rather than as items meet to be 

 labelled, and put into compartments, one is led to study the biology of the 

 vegetable kingdom, to use the microscope, and through it to see visions of a 

 thousand problems, some answered, many awaiting answer. And yet the syste- 

 matic side of the science is not obscured." 



Here in Essex, it seems to me, there is room for attempting 

 to carry out such a vegetation-survey as that commenced in the 

 north. Our Club has contributed materially to a knowledge of 

 the flora of the county ; but the new method is to view the local 

 plants in their relation to soil, climate, and other physical con- 

 ditions, which are controlling features in plant-distribution. A 

 map of Essex showing the vegetation-districts sketched out on 

 the new lines has yet to be constructed. Not that the floristic 

 method of plant-study is in any way to be displaced ; it is simply 

 to be supplemented by a general view of the distribution of 

 vegetable life, capable of cartographical expression. 



A short communication was sent to Southport by our 

 esteemed member, Mr. Holmes, calling attention to certain 

 •omissions in the new edition of some of the Ordnance Survey 

 Maps, on the 6in. scale. On the older map there occurs at one 

 spot in Greenwich Park the words " Roman Remains," and at a 

 neighbouring place just outside the park, the map gives the 

 information, " Roman Remains found here." In the newer map 

 of the same district (edition of 1894-96) these words' are omitted. 

 The curtailment of any archaeological information known to be 

 well founded, is a matter to which local societies may fairly call 

 attention in relation to the maps of their respective localities. 



