The Soils of Blakeney Point : A Study of Soil Reaction 
and Succession in Relation to the Plant Covering . 1 
BY 
E. J. SALISBURY. 
With Plate XV and five Figures in the Text. 
i. Introductory. 
HE work connected with this investigation was in part carried out in 
-L the Field Laboratory at Blakeney Point, where the bulk of the 
hydrogen-ion estimations were made upon the spot. 
The purpose in view was to see to what extent the phases in the 
development of the maritime plant associations could be related to 
variations in real acidity, and how far this in turn was correlated with the 
leaching out of carbonates and the organic content of the soil. In elucidating 
the answers to these questions the problem of the cause or causes of soil 
acidity is necessarily involved. 
The striking and easily recognized phases of the maritime succession 
render this type of plant formation peculiarly suited to a study of the 
accompanying soil changes. It is highly probable that a similar edaphic 
succession to that here demonstrated characterizes other inland plant 
formations, and the results here presented form a striking confirmation, in 
a totally different type of habitat, of the edaphic succession already studied 
by the writer in woodland communities (Journal of Ecology, vol. ix, 
pp. 220-40, 1922). 
But whereas the phases in woodland successions are often of a secular 
character and must in most cases be inferred from collateral evidence, the 
successions in coastal formations such as sand dunes, shingle beaches, and 
salt marshes are sufficiently rapid to present successive phases in one and the 
same area. 
In this respect Blakeney Point offers exceptional advantages, though 
the final stages in the dune series are lacking owing to their removal by 
wind action. 
1 Blakeney Point Publication, No. 20. 
[Annals of Botany, Vol. XXXVI. No. CXLIII. July, 192a.] 
