30 PBOCEEDIXGS OF THE 



The President, then addressing Count Solms - Laubach, 

 said : — 



CouxT Solms-Lalbach, 



It is a great pleasure to ine tliat it falls to my lot to present 

 to you, on behalf of the Society, our Liunean Medal, awarded for 

 the highest distinction in Biology. 



The wide range of your work, almost unequalled in these days 

 of specialisation, covers morphology, development, ecology, physio- 

 logy, the systematic both of Phanerogams and Cryptogams, the 

 history of cultivated plants, the geography of plants, and, last not 

 least, fossil botany. 



Tour earliest work was in a difficult field, in which you soon 

 made yourself the leading authority, the morphology and alKnities 

 of parasitic Flowering Plants, beginning in 1863 with a paper on 

 an OrohcincJie, followed, a couple of years later, by your dissertation, 

 ' De La(hrct(E generis positione systematica.' An important general 

 paper on the structure and development of parasitic Phanerogams 

 (1868) was succeeded by a series of monographs on the families 

 Lennoacefe, Eafflesiacefe, and Hydnoi\ace?e. 



Turning to another subject, you monographed the Pandanaceap, 

 Pontederiacea?, Caricacese, and Aristolochiacefe, and in more recent 

 years have interested yourself in the Cruciferae and Chenopodiaceae. 



The first of your Cruciferen-Studien, 1900, describes the remark- 

 able case of CapscUa Iler/eri, to all appearance a new species, which 

 has sprung into existence in our own time. 



Tour systematic work extended to Cryptogams, and we had the 

 honour of publishing in our own Transactions your fine mono- 

 graph of the Acetabulariacea^, calcai eous Alga) of special interest 

 from their relation to early fossil types. 



In other works you have thrown new light on the structure, 

 taxonomy, and distribution of Vascular Cryptogams, Mosses, 

 Hepatics and Fungi. 



A feature of special morphological interest is discussed in your 

 paper on Monocotyledonous embryos with terminal growing 

 points. Ton have touched on physiology in your work on the 

 occurrence of calcium oxalate in the walls of living cells. 



In another direction again, of more human interest, and of wide 

 evolutionary bearing, you have treated with nnich learning and 

 ingenuity the history of cultivated plants, such as the Fig, the 

 Papaw, the Wheats, Tulips, and Strawberries. I am glad to hear 

 that your important historical researches are still in active progress 

 during your present visit to England. 



Tour work on the Principles of Plant Geography (1905), a 

 critical review of the leading ideas on the distribution of plants, 

 is characterised, like all your writings, by breadth and originality 

 of thought,, and is exercising a wholesome inlluence on the progress 

 of this great subject. 



I should like especially to recognise how you have always 

 zealously pursued systematic botany, side by side vith every 



