REVIEWS, BOOK NOTICES, ETC. 49 
Reviews, Book Notices, etc. 
THE Types OF BRITIsH VEGETATION. By MEMBERS OF THE 
CENTRAL COMMITTEE FOR THE SURVEY AND STUDY OF BRITISH 
VEGETATION. Edited by A. G. Tanstry, M.A., F.L.S. 
Cambridge University Press. 8vo, cloth, pp. xx+416, with 
36 plates (including more than 60 photographs) ; 21 figures in 
the text. 6s. net. 
THE authors of this work, and British field botanists in general, are to 
be equally congratulated on the successful publication of the first 
handbook, on the distribution of the plant associations of Britain. 
The book not only forms a condensed record of the pioneer eco- 
logical work done in this country, but, from its very attractive nature, 
is sure to draw recruits to the ranks of plant ecologists. The 
material has been dealt with in a thoroughly scientific way and from 
a standpoint which has only been hinted at in a few of the more 
modern county floras. 
Between the title-page and the editor’s preface we find a fly-leaf 
with the following inscription: ‘‘To Professor Eugenius Warming, 
the Father of Modern Plant Ecology, and to Professor Charles 
Flahault, who, through his pupil Robert Smith, inspired the 
Botanical Survey of this country, this first attempt at a scientific 
description of British Vegetation is dedicated, in all gratitude and 
admiration, by the authors.” 
On the back of the fly-leaf is a list of the contributors to the 
book. The first twenty pages include the preface and tables of 
contents, the remaining four hundred and sixteen pages forming the 
text, a page of bibliography, and a good index. There are thirty-six 
excellent plates from photographs and twenty-one figures in the text. 
An introductory part and the two following chapters deal shortly 
with the units of vegetation, their nomenclature, relationships, and 
classification ; the physical characters and climate of the British 
Isles ; and the soils of Scotland, Ireland, England, and Wales. Three 
small-scale sketch-maps are inserted which bring out clearly the 
close relations between the distribution of the harder rock-masses, 
the higher ground, and the areas of greater rainfall; but this close 
relation between geological denudation, physiography, and climate 
does not seem to have appealed to the authors of some of the 
chapters to the degree that might have been expected. The plant 
formations of the British Isles are stated to be “mainly determined 
by edaphic factors, ze. by the soil”; but too great importance 
seems to have been attached to the nature of the geological formations 
as a direct agent in natural soil production and too little to its 
influence on geological denudation and physiography, and thus on 
climate and drainage, and indirectly on the soil through the diverse 
workings of mechanical disintegration, chemical decomposition, 
leaching, and the movement of surface and underground waters. 
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