Raunkiaer, Christen (1876–1960)A Danish ecologist who suggested that the earliest flowering plants grew under tropical conditions and that as their descendants spread to less hospitable regions they evolved a range of mechanisms in order to survive. This led him to develop a system for classifying types of plant according to the positions of their perennating buds in relation to the soil surface (see Raunkiaer's life-form classification).

Raunkiaer, Christen (1876–1960) A Danish ecologist who suggested that the earliest flowering plants grew under tropical conditions and that as their descendants spread to less hospitable regions they evolved a range of mechanisms in order to survive. This led him to develop a system for classifying types of plant according to the positions of their perennating buds in relation to the soil surface (see RAUNKIAER's LIFE-FORM CLASSIFICATION).