The 30th volume of Vegetatio has to some extent been devoted to J. Braun-Blanquet and this contribution will conclude our scientific celebration of Braun-Blanquet's 90th birthday. In addition to Lebrun's French and Pignat ti's German hommage I would like to convey my tribute in the English language. Although I became familiar with the Braun-Blanquet approach over 20 years ago mainly through V. Westhoff, whose continuing stimulus I greatly acknowledge it was only during the preparation of our contribution for the Handbook of Vegetation Science (Westhoff & van der Maarel 1973) that I became fully aware of the historical significance of Braun-Blanquet's life and work. From this historical study it became all the more clear that the oeuvre of Braun-Blanquet has a crucial position in the history of phytosociology. This position might even be compared with that of J. S. Bach's oeuvre in the history of music. Bach's music is generally recognised as a com pletion of the Baroque period in its synthesis of forms and styles of predecessors like Palestrina, J. P. Sweelinck, H. Sch?tz, J. Pachelbel and A. Scarlatti and contemporaries like F. Couperin and A. Vivaldi. At the same time Bach considerably influenced various great romanticists in cluding Mozart and Beethoven* and still later composers. Braun-Blanquet's phytosociology is a synthesis, a com pletion of ideas and methods from the beginning of the 19th century including those of A. von Humboldt, O. Heer, H. Lecoq, A. Kerner von Marilaun and R. Huit, of the 'fathers of the Z?rich-Montpellier school', C. Schr?ter, H. Brockmann-Jerosch, E. Rubel, Ch. Flahault and J. Pavillard, and of many contemporaries including W. L?di, E. Furrer, H. Jenny, R. Gradmann, A. Tansley, C. Raun kiaer, R. Nordhagen, A. K. Cajander and P. Jaccard. As such Braun's work is an end-point which was already fully achieved around 1920. It seems rather unrealistic to qualify this work in terms of epigonism as has been done from time to time and recently by Braun's old rival H. Gams (1972). At the same time Braun's phytosociology has inspired lots of younger scientists. This inspiration has been pro vided particularly in Braun's 'personal' institute, the S.I.G.M.A. the International Station for Mediterranean and Alpine Geobotany at Montpellier. Many thousands of vegetation studies, to which R. T?xen's series Excerpta Bot?nica Sectio Sociol?gica and Bibliographica Syntax onomica are excellent guides, many hundreds of essays and textbooks, most of which are mentioned in van der Maarel, T?xen & Westhoff (1970) and Westhoff & van der Maarel (1973), and last but not least thirty volumes of Vegetatio provide ample evidence of the far-reaching impact of Braun-Blanquet's intellectual system and also of its flexibility and its aptness for further development. Of all pupils and collaborators one stands out emphatically: R. T?xen. Braun has also influenced many vegetation scientists from other Schools and approaches. Particularly the amal gation with numerical plant ecology and gradient analysis seems to be fruitful. With this development we have to connect the name of R. H. Whittaker above others. As we