28 



INDIAN FOREST MEMOIRS. 



Type of Vegetation. 



Value of 

 (Ecology for 

 Forest 

 Officers. 



Types of Communities. 



C. Hygrophilous 



Grassland (=Wet Savannah and Reed Swamp). — The grass- 

 lands densely stocked with gigantic species such as Eri- 

 anthus elephantinus and Saccharum arundinaceum must 

 be placed here and may be termed Wet Savannah. Grass- 

 lands of Erianthus Rav'ennce must be regarded either as 

 one of the most highly developed forms of mesophilous 

 savannah or as one of the less strongly developed forms of 

 hygrophilous wet savannah. 



Probably also this group would include the more vigorous 

 Reed-Sivam'ps composed of gigantic species of Phragmites 

 and Arundo. 



Woodland which is typically developed in the densely stocked 

 Tropical Evergreen Forest. The woodlands composed 

 mainly of gigantic Bamboos found in the evergreen zones 

 of Burma, Assam and Bengal probably come here. 



The communities which have been roughly indicated above are merely intended to 

 serve as fairly intelligible types around which those communities which resemble them most 

 closely can be conveniently grouped, but it is at present impossible to describe these com- 

 munities in full detail, or to accurately define the limits of the groups under which they are 

 classified, for which far more detailed and accurate information is required than is at 

 present available. 



27. The scheme of classification which has 

 been sketched above, very imperfect though it is, at all events indicates that, so far as India 

 is concerned, for each main type of grassland there exists throughout a more or less parallel 

 and corresponding type of woodland, both of these types existing under approximately the 

 same conditions of available moisture, as determined by the combined effects of climate, 

 soil, and temperature. 



In the case of both grassland and woodland it will be noticed that the scheme com- 

 mences with the simplest or most xerophilous form and culminates in the most highly 

 developed type, i.e. with the evergreen tropical forest for woodland, and with the wet- 

 savannah and reed-swamp for grassland. 



28. The above somewhat detailed sketch of 

 the scope and objects of the study known as (Ecology, together with a tentative skeleton 

 scheme of classification capable of adoption for the compilation and arrangement of the 

 oecological descriptions of the various plant-communities constituting the vegetation of 

 India has been given here, partly because this is required to justify the classification and 

 description of the types of vegetation dealt with in this paper, and partly because, for 

 Foresters at all events, ©ecology is probably the department of botany of most interest and 

 of greatest practical importance. In oecological study a Forester can utilise all the 



[ 28 } 



