Woodhead : Plant Geography in Switzerland. 173. 



vioiisly written by a man equally in love with his subject and 

 his country. Though in some respects the best, it w^as by no 

 means the last word to be said on the matter, for in the eight and 

 twenty years that have elapsed since its publication, some 350 

 separate contributions have been made to the subject, the most 

 important emanating from the Polyteclinicum and the Univer- 

 sity in Zurich, under the direction of Prof. C. Schroter, Prof. 

 P. Jaccard, Dr. Rikli and Prof. H. Schinz, and from Geneva by 

 Prof. Chodat and Dr Briquet. 



Space will not allow of more than grouping this mass of 

 material, and saying a few words about each group in order to 

 indicate the nature and extent of the work accomplished. 



History of the Flora. — Much has been written on the 

 origin and history of the Swiss flora, and especially upon the 

 Alpine element. The chief contributions are by Christ in the 

 work referred to above, Schroter (Die Flora der Eiszeit, 1883^ 

 deals with the fossil glacial plants of Switzerland and elsewhere. 

 Heer (1883 , F. H. 85), discusses the Arctic origin of many species 

 and gives a list of 336 species occurring above 2,600 metres. 



Briquet (1890, 1898, 1899, F. H. 144 and 145), has made 

 several contributions on the history and immigration of the 

 flora, and discusses in much detail the xerotherm elements and 

 the xerotherm period, and more recently in a paper published 

 in the scientific results of the International Botanical Congress 

 of Vienna, 1905. 



Chodat (1895, F. H. 118), also discusses these questions, 

 dealing especially with preglacial forms, origin of Arctic ele- 

 ments, and the immigration of Southern Wallis plants through 

 the high passes from the Aosta Valle}^ 



Marie Jerosch f, at the suggestion of Prof. Schroter, col- 

 lected together in a most painstaking and thorough manner, 

 the materials concerning the history and origin of the Swiss 

 Alpine flora. These are presented in an excellent form, together 

 with many suggestions and observations of her own. forming, 

 a work indespensable to anyone interested in problems concern- 

 ing the history and distribution of Alpine plants. 



In Friih and Schroter's ' Moore der Schweiz ' :|:, Schroter 



* Christ has recently given a summary of the work done since 1879. 

 ' Apercu des recents travaux geobotaniques concernant la Suisse.' 

 Ble, 1907. 



t M. Ch. Jerosch, ' Geschichte und Herkunft der schweizerischen Alpen- 

 flora.' Leipzic, 1903. 



% J. Friih and C. Schroter, ' Die Moore der Schweiz.' 1904. 



go3 May i. 



