LINNEAN SOCIETY OE LONDON. 55 



Mr. Charles Baron Clarke then moved : " That the thanks of 

 the Society be given to the Presideot for his excellent Address, 

 and that he be requested to allow it to be printed ; " and this, 

 having been seconded by Prof. Charles Stewart, was carried 

 unanimously. 



The Society's Grold Medal for the year was formally awarded 

 to Prof. J. Gr. Agardh, of the University of Lund, and was 

 received on his behalf by Count Lewenhaupt, the Minister for 

 Sweden and Norway. 



In making the award the President gave the following account 

 of the medallist's life and work : — 



Jakob Georg Agaedh, Professor of Botany at Lund Uni- 

 versity, was born at Lund in 1813. Son of the celebrated 

 C A. Agardh, author of the Synopsis Algarum Scandinavice, of 

 the Systema Algarum, and of the Species Algarum, he inherited 

 both the love for phycology and the ability to promote its study. 

 His early work, in addition to some papers on phanerogamic 

 botany, consists of a series of miscellaneous researches, mostly 

 systematic. In 1848 he published the first volume of the 

 great work of his life, the Species, Genera et Ordines Algarwn, 

 the concluding volume (containing a revision of his earlier 

 treatment of part of the Ploridese) appearing in 1876. It is 

 not too much to say of this great book that it contains the 

 first embodiment of the natural system applied to marine AlgsB 

 as a whole. Greville, Harvey, and Kiitzing paved the way 

 without doubt and made this task possible, but Agardh's work 

 nevertheless remains a monument of research and true systematic 

 judgment. His next great work, Florideernes Morphologi, ap- 

 peared in 1879. He had commenced in 1872 a series of memoirs, 

 Till Algernes Systematik, which now engaged most of his 

 attention, and he finished the series in 1890. It probably con- 

 tains his ripest and best work. In 1889 he had meanwhile 

 published his Species Sargassorum Australice, a work involving 

 the examination of endless and perplexing details. In 1892 (in 

 his eightieth year) he commenced the remarkable series of 

 memoirs (in the style of his ' Till Algernes Systematik '), the 

 Analecta Algologica, and he is to be congratulated on having 

 achieved their completion. 



There is no group of marine littoral Algae which has not been 

 presented to us in a more orderly arrangement by the genius of 

 Agardh. His industry and extraordinary abilities have been 

 devoted throughout his long life to the construction of a natural 

 system of classification of marine plants, and his labours have 

 been crowned with the success of universal acceptance. 



The following obituary notices of deceased Fellows were laid 

 before the Meeting by the Secretaries, and the proceedings then 

 terminated. 



