Be. 
CURRENT LITERATURE 
BOOK REVIEWS 
Ecology of plants 
For a dozen years English and American botanists have been more or less 
hopefully awaiting a translation of WARMING’s Plantesamjund, which was — 
promptly translated into German and thus made available to a larger audience. 
A peculiar accumulation of misfortunes of one kind or another prevented an 
English edition of this epoch-making work, but at last WaRMING’s contributions 
are made available to all English and American botanists, and in the most happy 
way possible, through the preparation of an essentially new book.t The author 
has excellent command of the English language, having frequently contributed 
articles in this tongue. The new volume was written in English by the author 
himself, assisted by Dr. Martin VanL, and was prepared for publication by 
Drs. Percy Groom and I. B. Batrour. A preface written by the author calls 
attention to the more fundamental changes in the English work; these are so 
many and so important that an extended review is necessary. 
The introduction contains considerable new matter concerning growth forms 
(Lebensjormen or Vegetationsformen), together with a new and rather satisfactory 
Classification of them. ‘There are six categories of growth forms: heterotrophic, 
aquatic, muscoid, lichenoid, lianoid, and all other autonomous land forms. The 
final Category is, of course, much the largest, and is subdivided into monocarpic 
and polycarpic forms. Monocarpic growth forms may be aestival annuals, 
hibernal annuals, or biennials to perennials. The polycarpic forms are much 
more numerous, and their subdivision is based largely on the idea of the char- 
acter of their protection during the severest seasons, taking account of such 
things as the duration of the vegetative shoot, the length and direction of the 
internodes, the position of the renewal buds, the bud structure, size, leaf duration, 
and the adaptation of the nutritive shoot to transpiration. The sub-classes of 
Polycarpic forms are renascent plants (subdivided into plants with multicipital 
Thizomes, mat geophytes, and traveling or rhizome geophytes), rosette pease 
(subdivided into ordinary rosettes and tree rosettes), creeping plants, and panes 
_ With erect long-lived shoots (subdivided into cushion plants, undershrubs, soft- 
stemmed plants, succulent-stemmed plants, and woody plants with long-lived 
lignified stems). 
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