AN OUTLINE OF PHYTOBIOLOGY. 15 



D. Adaptations of Plants to Locomotion. To prevent overcrowding 

 and to secure ihe advantages of development under somewhat different 

 conditions of soil, etc., plants, like animals, must have the power of 

 locomotion at some period of their lives. Being incapable of it directly, 

 they have utilized the seed stage as most practicable and adapted it to 

 be moved by the ordinary locomotive agencies of tlie world about them 

 — wind, water-currents, animals, etc. The varying modes and degrees 

 of perfection of the power thus acquired, together wiih the operations 

 of man, produce important results in the distribution of plants within 

 limited areas, and some such problems of unusual interest wc have in 

 Acadia. 



E. The Biological Grovps of Plants. These include the groups 

 modified to a common special habit by influences other than those of 

 climate, such as the Parasites, Inseclivora, Water-plants, Though all of 

 them present, they are none of them conspicuously developed in Acadia. 



F. The Climatic Grovps oj Plants. As already mentioned Acadia 

 does not possess extremes of climate, and hence has not extremely- 

 adapted groups. But it has a great variety of conditions producing the 

 following floras : 



Strand, Fresh-water, Hard-wood upland. 



Salt marsh. Salt water, Dry sea-cliff, 



Sand-dune, Intervale, Hill, 



River-bank, Barren, Field and open place. 



Bog, Soft wood upland. Weeds. 



Swamp, 

 The characteristics of these, and their common response to their 

 common environment is a most important division of our subject. 

 Here must be considered also the causes which allow of the persistence 

 of northern and southern colonies within our borders. 



G. A Summary of the Biological Characteristics of the Vegetation of 

 Acadia, correlating our previous studies, and bringit g them into touch 

 with other departments of Botany, principally Botanical Geography and 

 Botanical Philosophy. Here we must consider recent changes in the 

 flora, and the causes of the introduction of northern and southern colonies, 

 and finally the general phytobiological status of the Acadian flora. 



So miicli for a general view of our subject. We have 

 now to enter upon the special treatment of its divisions, 

 one of which I hope to present each year to this Society. 

 I have every confidence that Acadian Botanists and 

 Phytobiology will prove reciprocally adaptive. 



The University, Munich, Germany, March, 1894. 



