89 

 WHAT IS ECOLOGY? 



By H. a. Gleason 



At a recent meeting of a well-known botanical society it was 

 suggested somewhat jocularly that the field of plant ecology is 

 not well defined, and that the speaker would welcome a further 

 definition of the phases of plant life that are covered by it. Now 

 the botanist who made this remark certainly does know what 

 ecology is. So do also the various botanists who have made and 

 are still making similar public statements on the same subject 

 and to the same effect. They know from actual experience with 

 the subject itself and with the men who work in it. The difficulty 

 is that ecology is so different from the more familiar divisions of 

 botanical science, morpholog>^ physiology, and the like, that 

 some of them fail to classify the subject properly in their own 

 minds. 



In order to present the matter, let us attempt a definition of 

 botany, to be used as a point of departure in formulating later 

 a definition of ecology.* Botany is the accumulation and or- 

 ganization of knowledge of plants. This definition holds for the 

 student who learns from the printed page or the observer who 

 takes his knowledge directly from the plant; for the beginner 

 acquiring the most elementary rudiments of the science or the 

 investigator extending the limits of knowledge. Botany does 

 not properly refer to the plant itself, although it is sometimes 

 used in that sense. A speaker may refer to the interesting 

 botany of Mexico when he really means the interesting flora. 



Morphology, as one branch of botany, may be defined by the 

 addition of one limiting phrase to the definition of botany: it is 

 the accumulation and organization of knowledge concerning the 

 form and structure of plants. Strictly speaking, the term does 

 not refer to the plant itself, yet in common usage it has frequently 

 been applied in that way. For example, a teacher may ask of 

 a student "Describe the morphology of the corn-kernel," when 

 he really expects a description of its structure. Or he writes an 

 article on the morphology of the vascular bundle of corn, and 

 the title is accepted without criticism as referring to the structure 



* In this connection see Torreya for May, 1912. — Ed. 



