Ill] SCRUB ASSOCIATIONS 95 



Examples of Succession I occur on some of the Coal- 

 measure plateaux on the eastern Pennines at an altitude of 

 about 800 feet (244 m.), of Successions II and III in the cloughs 

 of the sandstones and shales (cf. figure 12), and of Succession IV 

 in the limestone dales (cf. figure 13). 



The " scrub " of Crump (1904 : xxxviii), the " clough thicket" 

 of Smith and Moss (1903: 387), the "gill wood" and the 

 "hazel copse" of Smith and Rankin (1903 : 159 and 173), and 

 the " ash copse " of Moss (1907 a : 44) are here included in the 

 term scrub which is regarded as the English equivalent of the 

 German " gebusch." 



Professor Diels (in Flahault and Schroter, 1910 : 19) con- 

 siders the use of vernacular names in plant geography very 

 questionable. He maintains that such terms are ambiguous 

 even in the language to which they belong, that to foreigners 

 they are either meaningless or liable to misunderstanding, that 

 even if such terms be once strictly defined they will become 

 confused again, that they are permanently confusing to people 

 unversed in phytogeography, that newly coined expressions 

 (e.g., "Hochmoor" and "high moor") are not truly indigenous 

 terms and are most confusing to non-specialists, and that it is 

 therefore desirable to have universal expressions in Latin or 

 Greek, and to have these alone. With Diels' general position 

 I have very much sympathy ; but it is quite impossible, even 

 if it be desirable, to abolish vernacular terms even when these 

 do lead to some confusion. Diels specially singles out the 

 English term " scrub " as a phytogeographical nomen confusum ; 

 and to this might be added the English terms "forest 1 ," 

 "heath 2 ," and "swamp," and perhaps indeed every popular 

 physiographical and phytogeographical term. It appears to me 

 that the only course to adopt is to use vernacular names in 

 the most frequently accepted sense, and, in addition, to use 

 universal names which are not capable of misunderstanding. 



1 "Forest," in English, may signify almost any wild, open, uncultivated 

 tract of land, not necessarily a tract of woodland, though historical documents 

 prove that parts, at least, of the ancient British forests were tree-clad at some 

 earlier period. 



2 Although, in English, a heath is usually a heather-clad tract of land, yet, 

 in eastern England, the term is also used to denote a tract of calcareous pasture 

 with no heather, as Newmarket Heath and Boyston Heath ; and in Somerset, 

 it is used to designate tracts of deep and often wet peat. 



