230 Forestry Quarterly. 



ciations, forest types), based upon the types of vegetation found 

 in it. Its delimitations are on the basis of the vegetative re- 

 sponses to environmental conditions. Plant-ecology, on the other 

 hand, is distinctly local. One part deals with the ecological signi- 

 ficance of the morphological and physiological characteristics of 

 the plants of a locality. The other part deals with the local minu- 

 tiae of the vegetation of that locality (habitat), — with the relation 

 of its vegetation units and their subdivisions to the climatic and 

 edaphic conditions, etc., i. e. to the summation of their habitat com- 

 plex. Forest-geography and forest-ecology are, of course, both 

 branches of the broader subject of plant-geography and plant- 

 ecology. It is never implied that other growth forms than trees 

 are ignored in the former subjects, but only that the attention 

 and interest are focused upon their forest rather than upon 

 shrubby or herbaceous vegetation. Further, such investigations 

 when made, not by botanists for botanical purposes, but by for- 

 esters for forestry purposes, have features that serve to make 

 the subject of silvics not coterminous with forest-ecology, as is 

 sometimes supposed, but broader in scope, including such man- 

 ner of investigations, for instance, as the effects of methods of 

 brush disposal upon forest regeneration, the effects of fire dam- 

 age upon the quantity and quality of the yield, etc., embodying 

 technical questions of forest management belonging distinctly 

 to forestry and not to botany. Hence silvics covers in large part 

 the very ground of forest-ecology and yet, as well as this, covers 

 also a part of the investigative field not included within the 

 botanical subject of forest-ecology. Furthermore, the point of 

 view of silvics throughout is different because of its different 

 object. The forest-ecology of the botanists is concerned with 

 adding to the sum total of botanical knowledge. Silvics of the 

 foresters, on the other hand, is concerned with any and all forest 

 investigations, whether of indirect or direct value, that bear in 

 any way upon the practical questions of forest production. 



Dendrology — Its Scope. 



An examination of what the writer considers the specific scope 

 of dendrology is now in order. Dendrology, the science of trees, 

 as the word itself indicates, deals with tree species and not with 

 communities of trees, not with forests. Within this still broad 



