Plant Succession and Indicators

Excerpt from Plant Succession and Indicators: A Definitive Edition of Plant Succession and Plant Indicators

Plant Indicators, published by the Carnegie Institution of Washington in 1916 and 1920 respectively, and embodying the results of researches carried out under its auspices. The original editions having been exhausted, the Carnegie Institution has granted permission to the author to undertake the present publication but without responsibility on the part of the Institution. The two books were designed to be companion volumes, the one dealing with the concepts and principles, the other with the applications of the develop mental method. In consequence, it seems entirely appropriate to combine them in a single volume, with a corresponding gain in convenience and economy. The expense of a new edition of each book has appeared prohibitive when the requirements of investigators are kept in mind, and hence every effort has been made to keep costs at the minimum without the sacrifice of essentials. It has been regarded as a scientific duty to meet the growing demand during the years the books have been out of print, as well as to render them available in supplying the background for the books mentioned below.

It has been necessary to disregard the large amount of new material as well as to omit considerable portions of the text in order to bring the two books within the compass of one volume. The comprehensive nature of the treatments makes it possible to do this without serious harm to the main themes, and especially since the portions omitted are to be expanded into as many collateral books with a full account of the researches since 1914. Thus, chapters X and XI, dealing with the studies of succession in North America and Eurasia, and chapters XII, XIII, and XIV, treating of the new field of paleo-ecology, have been omitted from Plant Succession, while chapter IV, containing an account of the climax formations of western North America, has been left out of Plant Indicators. Materially expanded in scope and detail, these respective portions furnish the themes for as many books, now well advanced in preparation. The chapters that constitute the main body of the two treatises have been reprinted essentially intact. The plates and text figures have necessarily been reduced by the omission of the several chapters, and reasons of economy have led to a further reduction.

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