From the early XIXth century, studies of plant associations in relation to their different environments arose in geobotany, next to classical studies of species distribution. This trend in research was perpetuated and may explain some characteristics of the reception in France of American scientific ecology. Thus, during the interwar years, the Zürich-Montpellier school of phytosociology made possible important progress in bringing to the fore the discontinuities in vegetation. However, it hindered ecological research from the approach of plant associations dynamics, hence to ideas in systems ecology, while works on these subjects were successfully carried out at the same time in the USA. Nevertheless, several researchers (geobotanists, microbiologists or biocoenologists) worked within a conceptual framework that was in harmony with American studies on biotic communities.