102 
The British Vegetation Committee. 
any propositions which would not command unanimity, and con¬ 
tented themselves with a few safe propositions (see “ The Brussels 
Congress of Botanists,” New Phyt., Vol. IX, 1910, p. 261), 
A very minor detail of nomenclature should be recorded—that 
the Committee has sanctioned the use of “ British Vegetation 
Committee ” as an alternative short title, in place of the somewhat 
cumbrous, if comprehensive, “Central Committee for the Survey 
and Study of British Vegetation.” 
Publications. 
“ Types of British Vegetation ” as the first essay of the 
Committee in book form is an important landmark in the Com¬ 
mittee’s history. The first proposal was a guide-book for the 
I.P.E., but it was soon evident that even the most meagre sum¬ 
mary of existing publications would extend to many pages and 
consequently be expensive to produce. The Syndics of the Cam¬ 
bridge University Press were then approached, and agreed to 
publish a general work embodying our existing knowledge of 
British Vegetation, and it was felt that such a work, if the more 
general accounts were illustrated by the localities to be visited by 
the I.P.E., would constitute the best kind of guide-book that could 
be desired. The further evolution of the book is indicated in the 
Editor’s preface. What the Editor does not say is that the book 
involved a great deal of work, which had to be done under pressure 
in a very short time, and no record would be complete which 
did not emphasise the Committee’s indebtedness to the Editor. 
The direct contributors include seven members of the Committee, 
but practically every member has directly or indirectly contributed 
to the book. It is a record of much that has been done, but one 
of its chief uses will be to indicate how much there is still to do. 
The Committee has issued two pamphlets, reprints from this 
journal. “The Fundamental Units of Vegetation” by C. E. 
Moss (1910) was adopted as a pamphlet because it is a very useful 
historical record of the evolution of the development of the con¬ 
cepts of plant-formation and plant-association from early writers like 
Grisebach, through a long and varied subsequent career. The 
author endeavours to bring out the main line of development 
running through the various uses of these terms, and to show that 
its most natural culmination are the concepts already referred to. 
“The Woodlands of England” (1910) was also adopted as a 
Committee pamphlet because it brought together and classified the 
observations of the authors on Woodlands over the greater part 
of England, and presented, for the first time, a logical scheme of 
their inter-relations. 
There has also been published under the auspices of the 
Committee “ The Vegetation of Caithness considered in relation to 
the Geology,” (1910), by C. B. Crampton. This, it is hoped, 
may be a new departure, which will facilitate the publication of 
larger memoirs. The Committee has at present no fund for publi¬ 
cations, but in the above case the Carnegie Research Fund defrayed 
the cost after the manuscript had been reported on by the Primary 
Survey Publications Sub-Committee of this Committee, which 
some years ago was established as a medium for consideration of 
