1903] VEGETATION OF THE BAY OF FUNDY MARSHES 299 
in adaptation by their heredity, and a different heredity does not 
permit two distantly related plants to be brought into ecological 
identity at all points. Hence for purposes of detailed ecological 
study, and as well because of practical convenience, species and 
vegetation-forms are coincident, though the point of view from 
which they are regarded by systematist and ecologist is different, 
This treatment of the two as coincident is the more necessary at 
present because of the undifferentiated state of knowledge and 
terminology of the vegetation-forms,3 a subject greatly in need 
of systematic study and formulation. In the following pages I 
have attempted to indicate a few of the characteristics of the 
principal species* treated as vegetation-forms, especially in the 
case of Spartina stricta, and the ill-success of the attempt is at 
least in part due to the imperfections in our knowledge of this 
subject, a matter on which further comment will be found later 
in this paper. Much work has of course been done upon the 
anatomy of all of these plants, and Kearney has summarized it 
in some of the forms, but I have not attempted to treat this phase 
of the subject. 
The vegetation of the marshland. 
The vegetation-forms of any region taken together consti- 
tute its vegetation. The units, however, are by no means mixed 
at random to form the mass, but are grouped differentially in 
33 This term, used by Pound and Clements, wh'le better than the “life-forms” of 
Smith and the “biologic forms” of the translation of Flahault, is far from satisfactory, 
since the word form is somewhat ambiguous and the phrase aoe not convey an idea 
of the real significance of the vegetation-form either as a unit of the vegetation, or 
as a resultant of adaptations. A proper terminology of sce paar (a beginning 
in which has been made by Pound and Clements) is especially needed in order to 
allow the forms of different countries to be compared, which they cannot be if simply 
named for their species. 
% All of the species listed in the following pages, unless otherwise mentioned, 
have been confirmed or determined by Mr. Walter Deane, of Cambridge, Mass., with 
r, F. Lamson 
the exception of a fe the grasses whic e been named 
* Scribner, of Washin ngton, and to both of these botanists I must express my sincere 
thanks for their kind aid. The English names given are in all cases those by which 
the plants are locally known in the marsh country. The nomenclature is that of the 
sixth edition of Gray’s Manual, to which in brackets are added the synonyms made 
_Use of in Britton’s Manual. 
