A Modern Description of World Vegetation

Abstract

TWO books published at the end of last century undoubtedly laid the foundations of modern plant ecologyWarming's “Plantesam-fund”, made available to the majority of international readers through Knoblauch's German translation published as “Lehrbuch der Oeko-logischen Pflanzengeographie” in 1896, not appearing in Enghsh until much later (1909) in an enlarged but not nearly so satisfactory a form; and the original edition of the work under review, Schimper's “Pflanzengeographie auf physiologischer Grundlage” (1898), which was fortunately translated into English with less delay (1903). The two authors presented their material from somewhat different points of view, but both were masters of their subject, both had travelled widely in the tropics as well as in temperate regions, and both gave thorough systematic accounts of what was then known of the field. Warming's book was quite short, unillustrated and adopted a somewhat limited, though thoroughly instructive, guiding principle. SchimperJs was much longer, more discursive, illustrated by a great number of excellent photographs of vegetation and drawings of characteristic plants, and was indeed at the time of its publication a veritable mine of information previously unavailable to the student. It was somewhat vitiated, however, by certain physiological theories which have proved untenable in the light of later research.

Pflanzengeographie auf physiologischer Grund-lage

Von Prof. Dr. A. F. W. Schimper Dritte, neubearbeitete und wesentlich erweiterte Auflage, herausgegeben von Prof. Dr. F. C. von Faber. Band l. Pp. xx + 588. Band 2. Pp. xvi + 5891612.(Jena: Gustav Fischer, 1935.) 90 gold marks.