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.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 51 print issues and online access
$199.00 per year
only $3.90 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
TANSLEY, A. A Modern Description of World Vegetation. Nature 136, 587–588 (1935). https://doi.org/10.1038/136587a0
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/136587a0