490 BROOKLYN BOTANIC GARDEN MEMOIRS 



Percentages of Herbs 



1. Normal spectrum, including all categories 48% 



2. Average of 15 North Temperate floras as listed 



above, excluding monocotyledons 82% or about 90% counting 



monocotyledons. 



3. Average of 13 Tropical floras as listed above, 



excluding monocotyledons 31% or about 38% counting 



monocotyledons. 



4. Australia^ (excluding monocotyledons) 30% or about 35% counting 



monocotyledons. 



5. New Zealand* (excluding monocotyledons) 55% or about 70% counting 



monocotyledons. 



6. Local flora area, all categories 79% 



7. Total Long Island flora, all categories 83% 



8. 400 commonest Long Island species, all categories .78% 



Items 2, 3, 4 and 5 do not count monocotyledons and a careful esti- 

 mate of these monocotyledons shows that they make up form 1/5-I/3 

 of the floras of the regions mentioned. This monocotyledonous ele- 

 ment is overwhelmingly herbaceous and it adds a great deal to the 

 percentages of herbs in these items. Upon these figures the per- 

 centages, counting the monocotyledons, which are of course included 

 in Raunkiaer's normal spectrum, are estimated as shown in the table 

 above. The average of the percentages, including monocotyledons, 

 in items 2, 3, 4 and 5 is 58 percent which is as near an estimate to 

 the relation between herbaceous and woody species as we can get for 

 the areas mentioned. These, with the exception of South America, 

 make up the great bulk of the flora of the world and 58 percent of 

 herbs as against 42 percent of woody plants can, for the present, be 

 set down as a fair estimate. This is a clear 10 percent above the 

 combined herbaceous percentages of Raunkiaer's normal spectrum, 

 and very much nearer the percentages of the northern regions gen- 

 erally, where herbs predominate. 



In other words, the evidence from large areas, based on species, 

 and from a small area like Long Island, based on frequency of indi- 

 viduals, points unmistakably to the necessity of shifting some of the 

 Raunkiaer growth-form percentages. Herbs make up the great 

 majority of the vegetation in North Temperate regions, and, as we 

 have seen, even in the tropics and southern hemisphere their bulk is 

 by no means insignificant. Yet in the face of these figures, and of 

 those of as complete a plant census of Long Island as we can get, the 

 total herbaceous element according to Raunkiaer should be only 48 

 percent. As we have seen this is much too low for anything like a 

 true vision of the relation between herbs and woody plants in the 

 whole North Temperate region, and it is 10 percent lower than the 



5 .'\nn. Bot., /. c, p. 583, 585. 



