TORRRYA 
April, 1912 
Vol. 12 No. 4 
PHYTOGEOGRAPHY AND ITS RELATION TO 
TAXONOMY AND OTHER BRANCHES 
OF SCIENCE 
By P. A. RYDBERG 
Phytogeography in this country is almost a neglected field. 
Until recently no attempt had been made to give an adequate 
account of the phytogeography of North America or any larger 
part thereof. The phytogeographical sketches extant are 
scattered through the botanical journals and a few books on 
systematic botany. No attempt had been made to bring these 
records together until Professor Harshberger’s Phytogeographic 
Survey of North America* appeared last year. The writer 
admires Professor Harshberger’s courage in undertaking such a 
stupendous work, when in reality so little was known of the 
phytogeography of this continent, and still less was published. 
In a voluminous work, as the one there presented, compilation 
is not only allowable, but legitimate and altogether necessary, 
for it is impossible for any one person to know the flora of the - 
whole of North America. But how is it possible to compile, in 
cases where there is but little or nothing to compile from. 
The writer has many times been thinking of writing a phyto- 
geographical sketch of the Rocky Mountain region, in which he 
has spent six summers, besides one in the Black Hills of South 
Dakota and two in the foot-hill region of western Nebraska. 
One reason for not having done so has been the lack of time. 
Another reason has been that he knew that the sketch had to be 
writen practically from his personal knowledge of the region, 
for very few of the records are of any great help, without con- 
* Die Vegetations der Erde, vol. XIII. 
[No. 3, Vol. 12, of TORREYA, comprising pp. 45-72, was issued 12 March 1912.] 
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