td 
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ane: 
a 
ere SLORY OF PLANT LIFE 
IN THE BRITISH ISLES 
INTRODUCTION 
THE HABITATS OF PLANTS. 
URING the last decade much headway has been 
made with the study of plants in their natural 
surroundings or their habitat. And a new science, 
ecology, has arisen, which bids fair to revivify the old 
systematic botany, which had fallen into such dis- 
repute, by allying itself with that branch of botany 
and raising the study of plants from the systematic 
standpoint to a higher level. 
Considering the centuries that have been devoted 
to systematic botany or the study of the characters 
of plants and their relationship to each other, it is 
indeed to us, in these enlightened days, marvellous 
that the life of the plant, which includes a study of 
its habitat, its manner of association and relation- 
* ship to the character of the surroundings, had not 
been considered at all in detail until quite recently. 
I 
