CURRENT LITERATURE 



NOTES FOR STUDENTS 



Ecological terms and concepts. — Ecology, one of the latest branches of 

 botanical science, has naturally an immature and incomplete terminology, 

 although several of its followers have made attempts to remedy the latter 

 defect. Some of the recent discussions of problems of terminology are worthy 

 of note, not so much for their contributions to nomenclature, as to their logical 

 division of the subject and their criticism of the mistakes of the past. This 

 seems particularly true of an article by Pavillard, 1 in which he begins with a 

 historical and critical sketch of conditions in the past, and proceeds with an 

 analysis of the scope of plant geography. Here it is suggested that it would 

 be desirable for all to follow the practice of the Swiss school and employ the 

 designation " geobotany" suggested by Grisebach in 1866. Two main 

 divisions of the science are then made, resting upon the two fundamental 

 units of the species and the association. It is further suggested that the lat- 

 ter be appropriately termed plant sociology or phytosociology, and that the 

 problems of each division be segregated into three categories, giving as the 

 subdivisions of the subject: (1) Floristic geobotany, {2) Genetic geobotany, 

 (3) Ecologic geobotany, (4) Floristic phytosociology, (5) Genetic phyto- 

 sociology, and (6) Ecologic phytosociology. Whether this classification be 

 universally adopted or not, it has much to recommend it in logical clearness, 

 and, further, it shows considerable agreement with the best usage of the past. 



The content of floristic geobotany would remain the same as for floristic 

 plant geography as delimited by Warming in 1895, while ecologic geobotany 

 would not differ materially from the autecology of Schroter in giving emphasis 

 to the relationship of the individual species to its habitat and the growth form 

 by which it responds to its environment. To genetic geobotany would be 

 referred such questions as the geographical aspect of the origin of species, 

 heterogenesis, and endemism. 



In the division devoted to problems connected with the plant association, 

 the use of the term phytosociology or plant sociology was proposed by Jaccard 

 in 1910, and employed in a more limited sense by Harper. 2 The second and 

 third subdivisions seem about equivalent to Schroter's synecology, genetic 



'Pavillard, J., Les progres de la nomenclature dans la geographic botanique. 

 Ann. Geogr. 27:401-415. 1918. 



*9I7. 



Harper, R. M., The new science of plant sociology. Sci. Monthly 4:456-460 



183 



