42 PnOCEEDINGS OF THE 



years with the same question 1 know liow to appraise its great 

 worth, altliongh I represent totally different views,' The trouble 

 taken by the Austrian professor to give publicity to a theory wliich 

 ran altogether counter to his opinions, deserves to be placed on 

 record as a remarkable instance of scientific broad-mindedness."* 



In the following year Arber and Parkin extended their theory 

 to the Gnetales and adduced evidence to show that this enigmatic 

 group si)raiig from a common stock with the Angiospeniis and 

 developed, in many respects, along parallel lines (34, 1908). 



A conjoint memoir with Hamshaw Thomas, on the structux'e of 

 SiijiUaria scuteUata, etc., was the first full account of the anatomy 

 of a ribbed iSigillarian stem. Among other points of interest, the 

 autliors showed that the leaf-traces are double, a fact whicli en- 

 abled them to identify the isolated leaf )Si<jiUariopsis sulcata as 

 that of a ribbed Sigillaria. A subsequent note demonstrated the 

 same feature in /S'. mamlllaris (33, 1908 ; 39, 1909). 



In 1911 Arber took a leading part in the opposition to com- 

 pulsory Latin diagnoses of fossil plants, as required by the Brussels 

 Botanical Congress of 1910, and met with strong support t. 



A note on a new iJadoxi/Ion from the Halesowen Sandstone is 

 of interest, for the characters of the pith showed that the plant 

 was not a Cordaites : the author regarded it as a Conifer (60, 

 1913). 



In 1913 Arber contributed to a German encyclopfedia an article 

 on intermediate stages between Eerns and Seed-Plants, probably 

 his only vi'ork appearing in German, and remarkable, in these 

 days, as an example of international science. 



Arber's 'Revision of the Seed-Impressions of the British Coal- 

 Measures ' is a laudable attempt to deal with a difficult problem, on 

 which probably no two palceobotanists will agree. He recognized 

 14 genera, of which 9 were new. All the 37 British species are 

 figured, and the memoir is a record of permanent value (G2, 1914). 



A short note on sub-medullary casts of Calamites, in which the 

 features of the casts are explained by comparison with sections of 

 structural specimens, was Arber's last published work (71, 1918). 



We may now refer briefly to Arber's work in stratigrapliical and 

 taxonomic Paloeobotany, which was very extensive and touched on 

 the fossil Floras of many parts of the world —India, Australia, 

 New Zealand, and South Africa, as well as nearer home. His 

 earliest fossi! w'ork was on Kovle's Types from India, and on the 

 (Jlarke Collection from New "South 'Wales (5, 1901 ; 6, 1902). 

 His first paper dealing with a British Fossil Flora was on the 

 Cumberland coal-field (9, 1903). An essay on the use of Car- 

 boniferous plants as zonal indices gave rise to a valuable discussion, 

 to wliich the Frenclvauthorities Zeiller and Grand' Euiy con- 

 tributed (14, 1903). A long series of subsequent memoirs dealt 

 with the plants of the Ardwick series of Manchester (16, 1903); 



* A. Arber, Journal of Botany, vol. Ivi. November 1918, p. 308. 

 t See '>^aturc,' vol. Ixxxvi. May 18, 1011, p. 380. 



