CHAPTER VI 



ECOLOGY 



AFTER having outlined the departments of study in 

 which the plant is considered individually its relation 

 to physical factors, its organs, and the cells which com- 

 pose them we must now turn to a wider field where 

 the plant is merely an individual in a community, 

 and consider its environment and its neighbours. This 

 study of the plant in its home has been called ecology, 

 from the Greek word for home. Just as sociology, as 

 a branch of the study of human animals, is a compara- 

 tively new " subject," so ecology is a very recent branch 

 of botany. 



In a general way the communities which plants form 

 have been recognised for long we speak in common 

 parlance of " woods " and " heaths," of " marshes " 

 and of " moors " but a detailed study of the relations 

 of such groups of plants and their surroundings and of 

 the laws that form such communities and hold them 

 together was first started by Professor Warming, who 

 is still living. The systematic study of ecology was, 

 indeed, only taken up in England in the last ten years. 



When we speak of " woodland plants " we bracket 

 in our minds many individuals of very different types 

 not only the tall, woody trees, but the Bracken fern 

 and Bramble bushes growing under them, and also tho 

 short-lived Blue Bells and Wood Anemones of the spring ; 

 and when we speak of the " moors " we think not only 



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