112 
Omitting the several hundred papers of varied size and be- 
gotten of various concepts of the science, let us quote another 
figure of prominence in the field. Coulter, in his Plant Struc- 
tures (1900), defines the field of ecology thus: “It treats of the 
adjustments of plants and their organs to their physical sur- 
roundings, and also their relations with one another and with 
animals, and has sometimes been called 'plant sociology.'" The 
italics are mine. While this was not the genesis of a new phase 
of ecology, it was at least one of the first prominent expositions 
of the indisputable fact that adjustments of plants and plant 
communities to their environment must, in the last analysis, 
rest upon the adjustment of the organs of individual plants to 
external influences. It is merely an elaboration of the fact noted 
by Warming in 1895, that the distribution of plants must be 
correlated with the adjustment of the individual plant. That 
plant communities depend for their existence upon the com- 
munity of response in the organs of individuals of the society or 
association, seems so self evident, that it is strange the idea was 
not very strongly exploited before the passage quoted above was 
written. We see here one of the first extensions of the concept of 
ecology to cover a new set of activities, a partial transference of 
the idea from plants to their organs. This addition, while not 
revolutionary, is significant, and hereafter we find a broader note 
throughout ecological literature. Some of Coulter’s writings 
have been "ecology" of the old order, although he seems to be 
one of the first figures of prominence to draw attention to the 
individualistic and functional phase of the science. 
From 1900 until 1905 the number of ecological papers published 
was enormous and much of it was the descriptive study of vegeta- 
tion. But mark how the best known exponent of the plant asso- 
ciation-idea limits his definition of the science in his Research 
Methods in Ecology (1905): ‘‘The clue to the field of ecology 
is found in the Greek word olKos, home. [It] . . . has been 
largely the descriptive study of vegetation; physiology has con- 
cerned itself with function; but, when carefully analyzed, both 
are seen to rest upon the same foundation." Notwithstanding 
the last part of this statement, most of the ecological writing of 
