22 Forest Club Annual 



tion of any unknown problem of the sort with which we are 

 dealing depends in great measure upon one's power of observa- 

 tion and discernment. Right here then is where busy students 

 may, very early in their career, lay the foundation for most suc- 

 cessful post-college service. 



In this narrow space I have not attempted to give a de- 

 tailed outline for one particular problem, but rather have tried 

 to call attention in brief untechnical words to several of the most 

 prominent points which will be readily accessible to the student 

 and upon which he may work during his few spare moments in 

 the mountains. As a consequence the following suggestions 

 may be of more service to the student who is in the mountains 

 for the first time and who is young in the work rather than to 

 the advanced student or one perfectly familiar with mountain 

 vegetation and with the problems of modern forestry. If by 

 a familiarity with these pages the student's attention is called 

 to some phase of mountain botany which otherwise would have 

 passed unnoticed, I shall feel well paid for putting such notes 

 into his hands. 



This paper may be divided into two parts in reference to the 

 nature of each part. The first part deals with the general system- 

 atic botany of the forest, and the second with problems which are 

 essentially ecological. Since in my mind ecology should be pre- 

 ceded by all the other phases of the study of plants, especially 

 systematic botany, I shall first direct attention to the most ob- 

 vious aspects of the systematic forest botany of the region under 

 consideration, and will close this part of the paper with a key to 

 the genera and species of Rocky Mountain conifers, trees in 

 which the forester is especially interested. 



Since many clues to the development of arborescent vege- 

 tation are to be found in herbaceous forms it is essential that one 

 be familiar with the species of a given region. This in itself 

 properly constitutes a separate study sometimes known as 

 floristics. Plant societies or forest types are made up of species 

 and hence before a rational study can be made of the types of a 

 given area it is obvious that the student become familiar with 

 the species with which he is to deal. Species constitute the 

 materials entering into the composition of an oftimes apparently 

 heterogenous vegetation. The investigator must know the 

 component parts and their relations before he can assemble the 

 whole. It would require the whole of the students time for 

 several summers to gain a complete knowledge of a flora so 

 varied as that of the Rocky Mountains, with probably more 

 than three thousand species of flowering plants alone. In this 

 time he could do little with arranging these species into forma- 



