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 
3 monocotyledons. 
3. Average of 13 Tropical floras as listed above, 
excludingsmonocotyledonsh- 44.1.5 aurea nee 31% or about 38% counting 
monocotyledons. 
4. Australia5 (excluding monocotyledons)............30% or about 35% counting 
monocotyledons. 
5. New Zealand? (excluding monocotyledons)......... 55% or about 70% counting 
monocotyledons. 
6; Local floravarea, allicatesories;..9.2 2 eee: 79% 
7. Hotal Lone tslandifioray allicatecoriess 4o..024 + 06 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 1/5-1/3 
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 
HAN BOtai. Css Ds FOS Ons 
