318 PROCEEDINGS OF THE OHIO ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



iology is now based largely on physics and chemistry. On this 

 foundation, with constantly improving methods, advance is cer- 

 tain to be rapid. 



ECOLOGY 



Plant ecology is a new phase of botanical science, its de- 

 velopment extending through little more than two decades. The 

 word, ecology, sounded strange to botanists for several years 

 after the beginning of the quarter-century with which we are 

 concerned, and the science has been taking form throughout the 

 whole period. Evidently, the plant ecology of today is cjuite 

 dififerent from that of a decade or two ago ; but one cannot be 

 quite certain just what this new rteld of botanical study is at the 

 present moment. The thing that seems most certain is that, in 

 spite of all the chaotic confusion incident to passing through 

 the experimental state, ecology is to survive the various treat- 

 ments and the applications of terminology and become a useful 

 jKjrtion of botanical science. 



The ecology of today certainly deals with the relation of 

 plants, plant structures, and plant aggregations to the physical 

 and biotic environment. This makes plant ecology largely a 

 science of reactions. The morphological aspect is concerned with 

 the reactions of plant structures to the surroundings, the physio- 

 logical with the reaction of plant functions, and the physiographic 

 with the reactions of plant aggregates. It is evident that, in one 

 aspect plant ecology is closely related to morphology, in another 

 to physiology, and in a third to geography. Distribution is large- 

 ly ecological, and there is some ground for refusal on the part 

 of certain students to distinguish between plant ecology and plant 

 geography. At any rate, plant geography has received little 

 attention in America, except at the hands of those who dispose 

 of it with ecology, and we need give it no separate treatment in 

 this paper. 



The close relationship between ecology and morphology on 

 the one side and between ecology and physiology on the other 

 is also apparent. Ecology takes physiology to the conservatory 

 or to the field where experiments may be performed under more 

 natural conditions, instead of artificial conditions of the labora- 



