September 13, 1906] 



NA rURE 



493 



PROV. H. MARSHALL WARD, F.R.S. 



I T is long since the cause of British botany has 

 ■* sustained so severe a loss as that from which it 

 i-. now suffering by the deaths, within a few days of 

 each other, of Charles Baron Clarke and of Harry 

 Marshall Ward. Though differing widely in most 

 respects, in age, in pursuits, in circumstances, yet 

 ihis they had in common, high distinction in their 

 respective lines of work and a long record of devoted 

 and unremitting toil. It is not for me to attempt an 

 ap;)recialion of Clarke — that will be done by more 

 competenl hands — but I cannot forbear this slight 

 tribute of esteem and regard. Nor is it possible for 

 rn:', within the limits of space and time at my dis- 

 posal, to giv'e an at all adequate account of Ward's 

 life and work. I can only aim at recalling some of 

 ilie memories of a personal association at one time 

 most intimate, at no time entirely severed, and at 

 merely indicating the scope and the value of his 

 achievements. 



My acquaintance with Ward dates from the year 

 1S75. In the spring of that year I was assisting Sir 

 William Thisel ton-Dyer at the Royal College of 

 ■Science, South Kensington, in the conduct of a course 

 of instruction in botany, one of the earliest courses of 

 practical study, in the modern sense, ever given in 

 this country. We were both struck bv the singular 

 intelligence and enthusiasm of one of our pupils, who, 

 we felt, ought to be secured for the service of botany. 

 That pupil was Ward. At our suggestion he became 

 ;i candidate, in the spring of 1876, for an open 

 srhol.-irship in natural science at Christ's College, 

 Cambridge, where I was a lecturer, and, having 

 obtained the scholarship, he came into residence in 

 October of that year. His undergraduate career was 

 marked by a further development of those character- 

 istics that had so impressed Sir William Thiselton- 

 Dyer and myself at South Kensington. Under con- 

 siderable difficulties, the practical teaching of botany 

 was being established in the University ; but what- 

 ever the shortcomings of the instruction, they were 

 amply compensated by the earnestness of the students, 

 who, besides Ward, included Prof. Bower, F.R.S., of 

 Glasgow; Dr. Hill, Master of Downing College; 

 Prof. Hillhouse, of Birmingham; Dr. Walter 

 Gardiner, F.R.S., and others. However, Ward did 

 not confine himself to the study of botany, but availed 

 himself to the full of the excellent opportunities for 

 .icquiring a sound knowledge of physiology under 

 .Sir Michael Foster, and of comparative anatomy under 

 the late Prof. F. M. Balfour. A first-class in the 

 natural sciences tripos of i.Syq was a fitting close to 

 his undergraduate days at Cambridge. 



After taking his degree Ward went abroad for 

 [lurposes of studv, and worked for some time under 

 the late Prof. Sachs at Wiirzburg; but the respite 

 from botanical duty was not long. In 1880 he was 

 called upon, as cryptogamic botanist to the Govern- 

 ment of Ceylon, to go out and investigate the coffee- 

 leaf disease then ravaging the island, a difficult task 

 that he accomplished with considerable success. On 

 his return, in 1882, he was elected Berkeley fellow 

 at Owens Colle.ee, Manchester, and became assistant 

 to the late Prof. Williamson, F.R.S. Here he 

 laboured for three years, and did much to promote 

 the growth of the botanical school, leaving Man- 

 chester in 1885 to become professor of botany in the 

 forestry deoarfment of the Royal Indian Encineering 

 College, Coopers Hill. In the meantime (188?) he 

 had been elected a fellow of his old college at Cam- 

 bridtre. For ten years he remained at Cooners Hill, 

 throwin.? himself with his habitual energv into the life 

 of the place, until in 1895 he succeeded the lale Prof. 

 NO. 1924, VOL. 74] 



C. C. Babington, F.R.S., as professor of botany in 

 the University of Cambridge, becoming at the same 

 time professorial fellow of Sidney Susse.x College. 

 In this larger and most congenial sphere he found 

 full scope for the play of his activities in everv direc- 

 tion. Supported by a highly competent sta'i'f, and 

 with such colleagues as Mr. F. Darwin, F.R.S., 

 reader in botany, Dr. Gardiner, F.R.S., and Mr. 

 Seward, F.R.S., university lecturers, W'ard soon 

 succeeded, by his infectious enthusiasm, in giving a 

 fresh impulse to the progress of his science at 

 Cambridge. He himself always took charge of the 

 large elementary class, and won therefrom many 

 recruits for the ranks of botany by the attractiveness 

 of his lectures ; he gave besides one or more courses 

 on advanced subjects during the year, generally, as 

 might be expected, on .some groups of fungi. His 

 weak point as a teacher is eminently characteristic — 

 it was that he generally attempted to cover a great 

 (leal more ground, to convey a great deal more in- 

 formation in his lectures, than was possible either 

 physically or mentally. He educated many who have 

 since done excellent botanical work, for he not only 

 taught his pupils what was known, but also inspired 

 them to attack the unknown. Under him the 

 botanical school attained such importance that the 

 University allotted a large portion of the benefaction 

 fund to the erection of a new botanical institute, one 

 of the best in the country, which, together with other 

 university buildings, was formally opened by His 

 .Majesty the King in March, 1904. 



So far I have spoken of Ward only as student 

 and as teacher; I have yet to speak of him as in- 

 vestigator, his most important rdle. The bent 

 towards original research was strong within him 

 from the very first. His earliest papers date back to 

 1879 (Journ. Linn. Soc, vol. xvii. ; Quart. Journ. 

 Micr. Sci., vol. xx.), and relate to the embrvo-sac, a 

 subject that, owing to the brilliant discoveries of Prof. 

 Strasburger and others, was at the time especially 

 engaging the attention of botanists; but it was not 

 until his visit to Ceylon that he entered upon what 

 was to be his life-work, the investigation of the fungi 

 and bacteria. The first fruits of his work there was 

 a series of three elaborate reports on the coffee-leaf 

 disease to the Colonial Secretary (1880-1), and a 

 scientific paper on the fungus producing it (Hemeleia 

 vastatrix). read before the Linnean Societv on June 

 I, 1882 (Journ., vol. xix.); moreover, his experi- 

 ence in this case led him to form views on the 

 physiology of parasitism that influenced all his 

 subsequent work. However, when in Ceylon his 

 .attention was not so wholly absorbed by the coffee 

 disease as to prevent him from making other observ- 

 ations, the results of which are embodied in a paper 

 on the perithecium of Meliola, published in the Phil. 

 Trans, of the Royal Society, 1883, and in another on 

 a curious epiphyllous Lichen, Strigula complanata, 

 that appeared in the Trans. Linn. Soc, vol. ii., 1.8.84. 

 .\fter these, and two other papers on the Saprolegnise 

 and on Pythium in the Quart. Journ. Micr. .Sci.. vol. 

 xxiii., i88v there was for a tiine, owing to his 

 transfer to Coopers Hill, a lull in the activity of publi- 

 cation, broken bv the appearance in 1887 of two 

 jiapers in the Phil. Trans., the one on Entyloma 

 RanuncuU, the other on the tubercular swellings on 

 the roots of Vicia Faba, of which the latter is of 

 special interest. At this time the causation of these 

 swellines and their relation to the nitrogenous nutri- 

 tion of the plants bearing them was one of the lead- 

 ing problems of plant physiology. To the solution 

 of this problem Ward's, paper contributed the 

 important facts that fi) the tubercles are undoubtedly 

 of parasitic origin, and (2) that the parasite gains 



