In 1877, he began publishing the present work in the Botanical Journal. As the title suggests, he presented not only morphological observations but also details on the life conditions of various, mostly Danish, plants, including their development from seed, shoot structure, rhizome formation, and flower biology. He planned to one day compile these studies into a complete natural history of native flowering plants, but never accomplished it. (See Kolderup-Rosenvinge, Eug. Warming).

Johannes Eugenius Warming (1841–1924), commonly known as Eugen Warming, was a pioneering Danish botanist widely recognized as one of the founding figures of modern ecology. He authored the first textbook on plant ecology in 1895, introduced the first university course in the subject, and helped define the scope and content of ecological science. In 1975, ecologist R. J. Goodland asserted: “If one individual can be singled out to be honoured as the founder of ecology, Warming should gain precedence” ("The Tropical Origin of Ecology: Eugen Warming's Jubilee"). Warming wrote a number of textbooks on botany, plant geography and ecology, which were translated to several languages and were immensely influential at their time and later. Most important were “Plantesamfund and Haandbog i den systematiske Botanik”.