BOOK REVIEWS 

 Plant Ecology — Weaver and Clements^ 



John A. Small 



The first edition of this book appeared in 1929, and seems 

 to have passed unnoticed by Torreya. Many Torrey Club 

 members, particularly those who take their botany in the field, 

 will find answers in the book to some of their queries. The first 

 chapter deals with vegetation. It shows that the plant com- 

 munity is dynamic and subject to change and development. 

 The next chapter is devoted to methods of studying vegetation 

 to get quantitative data. The discussion is complete but some- 

 what conservative. 



Many readers will have had the experience of returning 

 after some years to an area only to find it quite changed, per- 

 haps more delightful, perhaps disappointing. Such a change, if 

 unmodified constitutes a normal succession, the subject of 

 chapter 3. The authors then deal with the units of vegetation 

 and the names by which they should be designated. This is a 

 highly controversial matter among ecologists. The authors have 

 stood by their own views, to which perhaps the majority of 

 their American colleagues will subscribe. One wishes, however, 

 that a term in as common usage as synusia had not been 

 ignored, not to mention other terms. Some mention of the con- 

 tinental system of naming plant comrriunities, if not a discus- 

 sion of the various schools of phytosociological thought, would 

 have tended toward completeness. Raunkiaer's life forms and 

 biological spectrum are also omitted. 



The fifth chapter deals with the initial causes of succession 

 while the sixth treats the mechanics — migration, ecesis, and 

 aggregation. This is properly followed by a discussion of com- 

 petition and invasion. Economic, particularly agricultural and 

 conservational, aspects of the subject are included. The soil 

 receives a much more complete presentation than in the earlier 

 edition. Modern concepts of soil science are recognized in some 

 detail. The effect of the plant or community upon the habitat 

 (reaction) and the ultimate dynamic equilibrium (stabilization) 



' Plant Ecology. John E. Weaver and Frederick E. Clements. Second 

 edition. McGraw-Hill Book Co. 1938. xxii-601 pp. illus. $5.00. 



126 



