VOLUME LIV 



NUMBER 4 



THE 



Botanical Gazette 



OCTOBER igi2 



COMPARATIVE ANATOMY OF DUNE PLANTS 



CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE HULL BOTANICAL LABORATORY l6l 



Anna M. Starr 



(with thirty-five figures) 



The literature of ecological anatomy is extensive when one con- 

 siders that the whole subject of ecology is a late arrival in the field 

 of botany. Comparative anatomy, ecologically viewed, is limited 

 enough to justify a brief review. Bonnier (i) was a pioneer in 

 experimental work, taking parts of plants growing in intermediate 

 situations in the mountains and transplanting one part to the low- 

 lands and another part to alpine conditions. He found that the 

 ^plants grown in the two habitats differed in appearance, habit, and 

 structure (2). Grevillius (15) in an extensive work on the island 

 Oland compared the vegetation of the alvar, a dry, rocky, treeless 

 plain, with that of the fertile regions. Chrysler (7) compared the 

 anatomy of strand plants at Woods Hole with that of the same 

 species growing on the shores of Lake Michigan. Cannon (5) at 

 the Desert Laboratory (Tucson) contributed some experiments on 

 desert plants, keeping some plants under irrigation and letting 

 others of the same species grow without irrigation, his study being 

 a comparison of the conductive tissues. Chermezon (6) in a 

 recent contribution to the anatomy of littoral vegetation makes 

 some comparison of it with that of continental plants. All agree 

 that the structure of plants varies with change in conditions. 



In 1899 Cowles (8) published the results of his studies of the 

 sand dunes of Lake Michigan, describing the general features of 



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