44 THE SCOTTISH BOTANICAL REVIEW 
Ecological Terminology as applied to Marine Alge. 
By N. Miller Johnson, B.Sc., F.L.S. 
THE works of Warming and Borgesen are eloquently suggestive of 
what research methods shou/d be in ecological botany. 
That of the former is magnificently comprehensive, covering as it 
does the whole field, while the latter is no less comprehensive, from, 
however, a more restricted standpoint. 
Algze are included in Warming’s work, while they occupy the 
entire theme of Borgesen’s ‘‘ Faeroese Algze.” 
No doubt the general concepts of formation and association possess 
similar values in the mind of each writer, but as regards Algee the 
terminology clearly shows that the concepts are different. 
It would appear that formation as used by Borgesen, implies 
association as used by Warming. 
According to the former, the word formation is used to denote a 
group of different species belonging, as in the Fucacez formation of 
a sheltered coast, to the same family; whereas, if one correctly 
interprets the latter, the word formation is used to designate the 
entire group of Algze (limno- or halo-nereid formation according to 
the fresh- or salt-water habitat). 
Borgesen’s association appears to be a formational unit consisting 
of one species only, while Warming’s association seems to imply a 
group of plants of one, two, or more species all growing together 
under the same or similar conditions; or, in his own words, which 
must be taken to refer to terrestrial vegetation only, “an associa- 
tion is a community of definite floristic composition within a 
formation” (p. 145). 
Thus it will be seen that while under certain circumstances the 
idea’ of association as used by both writers is the same, yet in the 
majority of cases formation, as used by Borgesen, means association 
as used by Warming, and the association of the former is the plant 
society of Moss (p. 48, 1910). 
The suggestion which the present paper wishes to embody is, that 
as ecological terminology is now fairly definite, and accepted as such 
at least in Great Britain, an effort should be made to use the same 
terms, if not to the entire range of cryptogamic botany, at any rate 
to marine alge. 
Just as a terrestrial ‘formation may be divided into two or more 
sub-formations, the nereid formation (of Algze) is divided by Warming 
into two sub-formations : 
(a) Fresh-water (limno-nereid). 
(2) Marine (halo-nereid) (p. 169). 
It is customary to distinguish in the latter sub-formation two regions : 
(a) the littoral ; (@) the sub-littoral. 
These regions could then be again divided into associations and 
plant societies, according to groups, single species, or in many 
