c6 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



between host and parasite in certain epidemic plant diseases was 

 published in the ' Proceedings of the Eoyal Society ' in 1&90, and 

 led to his being selected as Croonian Lecturer in that year. 



A sbort paper on Craterostigma jyuinilum in our ' Transactions ' 

 (Bot. V. (1899) 348-355, pis. 34, 35), while interesting for its 

 account of the colouring-matter contained in the root, reads 

 curiously as to the first part, where the steps are detailed by 

 which tiie determination of the plant was made, sho\\ ing that the 

 brilhant investigator was not equally at home on taxonomic 

 points. The symbiotic life of the organism known as the " Ginger- 

 beer plant " was set out in the ' Philosophical Transactions ' in 

 1892. 



A laborious series of investigations on the "Water Research 

 Committee of the Eoyal Society in 1893-6, in conjunction with 

 Professor Percy Prankland, showed Ward's powers of working 

 out the life-history of no fewer than eighty bacterial organisms 

 found in the river Thames, bis fifth report in 1897 summing up. 

 Bacterial subjects occupied much of bis attention about this time, 

 as shown by his " Characters in Classifying the Schizomycetes " in 

 the 'Annals of Botany,' 1892; "Action of Light on Bacteria," 

 Phil. Trans. 1895 ; " Some Thames Bacteria " and " A Violet 

 Bacillus from the Thames" (Ann. Bot. 1898). 



Whilst these researches were being carried on, Professor C. C. 

 Eabington, Professor of Botany at Cambridge, passed away, and 

 Ward was appointed his successor, at the same time becoming 

 professorial Pellow of Sidney Sussex College. Transferred into 

 this more congenial atmosphere, he succeeded in giving a fresh 

 impulse to the progress of his science in his own University, 

 The Botanical School acquired so much importance that the 

 University allowed a large share of the benefaction fund to the 

 erection of a new botanical institute, which was opened by L[is 

 Majesty the King in the spring of 1904. 



The Uredine fungi became the dominant interest of Ward's 

 later investigations. The Brown Busts on Brome Grasses were 

 shown to be physiological species, forms morphologically identical, 

 but showing varying powers of infection, or even of inability to 

 attack certain species of Bromus. He became involved in a 

 controversy on the mycoplasm theory, which, after long in- 

 vestigation, he considered he had shown to be untenable. 



His principal original papers have only been briefly touched 

 upon, but this notice cannot pass by his other contributions to 

 botanic literature, as his translation of Sachs's ' Physiology of 

 Plants,' 1884 ; 'Timber and some of its Diseases,' 1889 ; 'The 

 Oak,' 1892 ; a revision of Laslett's ' Timber and Timber Trees,' 

 1894; 'Diseases of Plants,' 1889 ; 'Grasses,' 'Disease in Plants,' 

 both in 1901 ; ' Trees,' of which three parts have appeared, 

 1 902-6. A paper which appeared in our ' Transactions ' a few 

 years ago by one of his pupils was unobtrusively condensed and 

 rearranged for publication by Ward. 



Marshall Ward was elected Pellow of our Society 6th May, 



