376 German Veget at ion. 
country, since the Oak appears to be excluded by the Beech on 
many German soils. One does not gather from Graebner’s account 
that there is any distinction in Germany between woods of Quercus 
sessiliflora and those of of Q. pedunculata—a. distinction so well- 
marked in England. On the other hand oak-woods on wet soil in 
which actual peat-formation occurs (Auenwalder of Drude) are 
scarcely well represented in this country, though our oak-woods 
show a transition to alder-woods in such situations. The general 
ecological characteristics of the oak-wood are much the same in 
Germany and England, though again they have many species which 
we have not. The Ivy and the Honeysuckle are the characteristic 
climbers in both cases. 
The “mixed woods” of Germany are not represented in this 
country. In richness of arboreal and ground flora they seem to 
stand nearest to our Ash-Oak-woods, but are said to be developed 
on “ fresh ” glacial and other sands, rather than on limy soil. The 
richness of the flora is attributed to the different depths at which 
the various trees root, allowing a greater variety of shrubs and 
herbs to find space for their root-systems. 
Of the Birches, B. verrucosa is said to be the most generally dis¬ 
tributed, while B. tomeiitosa occurs in the more rainy north-west, where 
in the great heath-region it is mixed with the other species. This 
is interesting in view of the fact that a similar mixture of the two 
birches occurs on the heaths of the south-east of England, probably 
to be regarded as an extension of the German heaths, while B. 
tomeiitosa is the characteristic form of the hill woods of the north 
and west of our country. 
Dr. Graebner regards birch-woods as mostly a transition to 
heath, to sandy plains and to the sunny hill communities, and 
points out that this type of woodland does not possess a- 
characteristic ground-flora as such, the trees being intermingled 
with plants belonging to the allied non-arboreal vegetation, such for 
instance, as the heath flora. This description fits very well the 
birch-woods of this country. With us too the non-exacting 
character of the birch leads to a development of loose woods on the 
borders of heaths, etc., while birch-wood also forms a climatic zone 
above the oak-woods, and sometimes above the ash-woods also, of 
our higher hills. 
Of the well-developed coniferous forests of Germany we have 
no representatives in this country, with the exception of the 
Scottish pinewoods. 
The remainder of the plant-communities described by Dr. 
Graebner—Alder-woods, Fens, River-bank vegetation, Aquatic 
vegetation, Heath, “ Hochmoor,” Coastal dunes and Salt marshes— 
are more or less closely paralleled in England. It should be noted, 
however, that what he calls “ Heidemoor ” which is generally 
dominated by Sphagnum, is not the same thing as our “ Heather- 
moor ” (used for grouse-shooting) which is a drier type, more 
closely approaching Heath. Our extensive moors of Eriophorum 
and of Scirpus ccespitosus do not appear to be represented in 
Germany, since all Dr. Graebner’s references to these plants show 
that they occur merely as local societies or as more or less isolated 
individuals. A thorough ecological study of the extensive series of 
“ Hochmoor ” types of the British Isles is one of the things 
which British ecologists should take in hand as soon as possible, 
