2 3 
Fundamental Units of Vegetation. 
it must remain.” On the whole, Kernel’ used the term “formation” 
in rather a narrow sense. 
The “zones secondaires” of Masclef (1888: 180, et cet .) may 
also be regarded as associations. 
Drude’s Bestdnde (loc. cit.) are vegetation units which are 
determined by the dominant or social species within a formation. 
Drude considered them as important units, and maintained that 
their study must yield a very accurate analysis of the vegetation. 
It may be here mentioned that the vegetation units which are 
indicated on the vegetation maps of British ecologists, are, on the 
whole, the Bestdnde of Drude. These are associations ; but whether 
or not the term Bestdnde may be legitimately used for all associations, 
including mixed associations, is not clear. However, Cajander 
(1903: 23) distinguished simple, mixed, and compound Bestdnde. 
The term Bestdnde , in Drude’s sense, has been adopted by many 
recent continental ecologists and plant geographers, such as Hock 
(1894, etc.), Schroter and Kirchner (1902), Cajander (1903), and 
Brockmann-Jerosch (1907). 
Flahault (1896: 450; etc.) has used the term association 
for many years. He tabulated (1896: 309; 1897: 22) associations 
of Abies peCtinata, of Pinus sylvestris, of Castanea vesca, of Qnercus 
sessiliftora, of Fagus sylvatica, etc., etc.; and he has on many 
occasions described these and other associations. In 1900, he 
advocated the adoption of the term at the International Congress 
of Botanists at Paris; and an English translation of his paper has 
been published (1901). 
Schroter (1894), in an account of certain “associations de 
plantes” in Valais, described “formations” of Festuca valesiaca, of 
Nardus stricta, of Carex senipervirens , and so on : these “formations” 
are apparently associations in the modern sense of the term. 
Graebner (1895, 1901) divided the heath formation of north 
Germany into “types”; and there can be no doubt that these, of 
which examples are Calluna heath, Tetralix heath, and Empetrum 
heath, are precisely what are meant nowadays by associations. 
Livingston (1905) took up the term “type,” being apparently dis¬ 
satisfied with the term “society” which he had previously (1901, 
1903) used for what appears to be the same concept. 
Robert Smith, one of Flahault’s pupils, was the first to apply 
the term association to the vegetation-units of Great Britain. In 
the basin of the river Tay, R. Smith (1898) distinguished associations 
of Fagus sylvatica (introduced), of Quercus, of Pinus sylvestris , of 
