102 Obituary Notices of Fellows deceased. 



He dealt with familiar "Prognostications of Weather" in a pam- 

 phlet with that title published in 1849, and in conjunction with 

 Mr. J. B. Scoffern contributed a small work on Practical Meteorology 

 to Orr's "Circle of the Sciences" in 1856. 



Many striking observations of halos and allied phenomena made by 

 himself and others are collected and illustrated in the "Treatise on 

 Atmospheric Phenomena." Mr. Lowe managed to record a hundred 

 and ten solar and lunar halos within four years at Nottingham. Later 

 on he added to the collection a very remarkable case, which is figured 

 in ' Nature.'* 



He gave his attention, amongst other things, to the improvement of 

 the means for testing the amount of ozone in the atmosphere, and he 

 also contributed papers to the Astronomical Journals on Meteors, 

 Sun-spots, and on the Zodiacal Light. 



In addition to his researches in physical science, Lowe was an ardent 

 naturalist, publishing works on conchology, on British ferns, grasses, 

 and ornamental plants. He was an enthusiastic gardener, and his 

 experiments on hybridisation were as remarkable as they were 

 numerous. The hybridisation of flowering plants can be effected 

 directly and without doubt. It is different in the case of ferns. 

 Admixture of spores taken from different plants and close approxima- 

 tion of different individuals can alone be practised, and the results are 

 correspondingly uncertain. Prothalli are formed bearing antheridia 

 and archegonia, from which latter, after fertilisation by the spermato- 

 zoid, the new plant is formed. In Lowe's early experiments (1855) 

 the seedlings were nearly all normal, whilst now (1890) "it is 

 difficult for me to raise a normal form, one or two marked varieties 

 used to be the reward, now they can be counted by hundreds." 

 Ultimately Mr. Lowe obtained results of an astonishing nature. 

 At the Fern Conference held in the Chiswick Gardens of the'Koyal 

 Horticultural Society on July 23, 1890, Mr. Lowe showed not me 

 but several plants, resulting from what he considered "multiple 

 parentage " that is, on the same plant, nay even on the same frond, 

 were clear evidences of the influence of different varieties, the spores 

 of which had purposely been mixed together. "The third experi- 

 ment, " writes Mr. Lowe in the ' Journal of the Koyal Horticultural 

 Society,'! "was the mixing together the spores of half a dozen 

 varieties of the lady fern, and as a further trial, half a dozen varieties 

 of the hart's tongue. This brought out a new fact there were 

 seedlings that showed the characters of three and even four varieties 

 on a single frond, so that male organs from several varieties had 



assisted in this impregnation A further experiment with 



the hart's tongue is also of peculiar interest. An undulate form, a 



*Vol. 15, p. 508. 

 tVol. 12 (1890), p. 509. 



