66 PROCEEDINGS or THE 



Botanical!}', he was a man of a remarkably wide and varied range 

 of knowledge. His acquaintance with all groups of plants, more 

 especially of the whole of the Cryptogamia, was extraordinary ; 

 and his knowledge was not merely wide, but profound and. 

 detailed. 



In the early period, as a general botanist, he took part, along 

 with numerous other able naturalists of the county, in making the 

 Yorkshire Naturalists' Union the remarkably powerful and suc- 

 cessful instrument of local scientific research which it has ever 

 since been. In 1880 he was Secretary of its Botanical Section ; 

 but the increasing claims of his teaching work prevented, him 

 from attending after this many of the meetings. But in 1899 he 

 was elected President of the Union — significant evidence ot^ the 

 respect in which he was held by his fellow Yorkshiremen. About 

 this time — 1878 to 1887 — he published numerous notes and short 

 papers on general botanical subjects ; and in 1888 he contributed 

 a large amount of material to Mr. F. Arnold Lees's 'Flora of West 

 Yorksliii'e.' 



He now began to concentrate his energies on the freshwater 

 Algse, and particularly upon the Desmidiaceae — a group which he 

 speedily made peculiarl}^ his own. He studied them from all 

 points of view — systematically, morphologically, ecologically ; and 

 his vacations were systematically devoted to field-work in many 

 parts of the British Isles, particularly in the remoter and more 

 inaccessible parts of the mountain regions of England, Wales, 

 Scotland, and Ireland. The results were seen in the publica- 

 tion of numerous important papers, some in the issues of the 

 Linnean Seciety. Beginning near home, their (for his son George 

 was now growing up and actively co-operating in the algological 

 investigations) native county of York was adequately worked, 

 papers published for each of the Eidings, and, finally, in 1900-01, 

 a full Alga-flora of the whole county. Papers were also published 

 dealing with North AVales (1890), the English Lakes (1892), the 

 West of Ireland (1892), Scotland (1893), the South of England 

 (1897), the North of Ireland (1902), and the Orkneys and Shet- 

 lands (1912). A couple of papers also appeared dealing with 

 Denmark (1891) and Portugal (1892). 



Material was now being sent to West and his son from various 

 parts of the world, and this formed the basis for a number of 

 memoirs. These included papers dealing with the American 

 States of Maine (1888, 1891) and Massachusetts (1888), and for 

 the West Indian Islands (1894, 1899). For the Old World were 

 published memoirs dealing with Singapoi'e (1897), Koh Chang 

 (1901\ Ceylon (1902), Burma (1907), and Korth Borneo (1914). 

 Meanwhile, another able Leeds desmidiologist, Mr. W. Barwell 

 Turner, had monographed the Desmids of India. The Wests 

 dealt with Madagascar in 1895, Central Africa in 1896, and 

 Welwitsch's African material in 1897 ; and in 1911 they pub- 

 lished the freshwater Algae collected by the Sliackleron Antarctic 

 Expeditiou. 



