182 Cambridge Meeting of the British Association. 
In the afternoon Miss Stopes gave a too brief account of her 
recent thorough work on the morphology of Cycad ovules, and 
morphological papers by Mr. Arber, Mr. Boodle and Dr. Lang 
occupied the rest of the sitting. 
Friday morning was devoted to Ecology. Mr. Tansley gave an 
introductory address on the Problems of Ecology, which will be 
found in the present number of this journal. Professor Engler 
welcomed the present tendency to devote attention to ecological 
work on the ground that it helped to prevent systematic botany 
from sinking into mere specialism. He called attention to the too 
frequent neglect of the cryptogams, which so often prepare the soil 
for the higher plants. Dr. Stapf was particularly glad that ecological 
work was being taken up in the British Isles, since their flora is of 
special interest on account of their geographical position and 
geological history. 
Dr. W. G. Smith followed with an account of the progress of 
the botanical survey of Britain. After some introductory remarks 
on adaptation and plant-associations, he compared Flahault’s 
method of survey with Drude’s, and with that adopted by himself 
and his co-workers in the north of England and in Scotland. He 
pointed out that the tallest plants dominate an association, and 
hence naturally form the “index species.” While trees play this 
part over great tracts of the earth’s surface, this is not now the 
case (though at one time it probably was) in most of the native flora 
of Britain, and hence Flahault’s tree-index method of mapping is 
artificial for most of our native associations. 
Mr. T. W. Woodhead gave a most interesting paper on the 
“ Biology and Distribution of Woodland Plants.” The author has 
worked out the associations and some of the factors determining 
the distribution of the “character-plants” in the most excellent way, 
and his points were illustrated by many admirable photographs. 
Professor Engler read an interesting paper on the migration of 
S. European plants to the High Mountains of Tropical Africa. 
In the afternoon Professor Klebs read an important paper on 
the “Artificial Formation of a New Race.” The author had suc¬ 
ceeded in inducing artificially certain “mutations” in Veronica 
Chamcedrys, for instance by excising the terminal bud, and these he 
found reproduced not only in cuttings, but in plants raised from 
seed and grown under ordinary conditions. 
There was also a discussion between Mr. Wager and Professor 
Zacharias on the nature of the Cyanophyceous cell, and an address 
by Dr. Lotsy, illustrated by beautiful lantern slides, on the Vegetation 
in the Virgin Woods of Java. 
Saturday was devoted to an extremely pleasant excursion to 
Chippenham Fen, in which nearly all the members of the Section 
took part, though it is to be feared that very few did any botanising! 
From a social point of view the excursion was most enjoyable. 
The thanks of all who took part in it are due to Mr. A. W. Hill, 
who looked after the arrangements, not least because the programme 
was so planned that no one was either hurried or bored the whole 
day. 
On Monday morning after a paper by Lord Avebury, Professor 
Marshall Ward gave an address on “Recent Reserches on Parasitic 
Fungi,” in which he dealt historically with the progress of knowledge 
on the relation of host and parasite, tracing it down to the most 
