liv Annual Report of the Council. 



By the death of Professor Marshall Ward in August 

 last, botanical science has lost one of its ablest exponents. 

 Born in 1854 at Hereford, he distinguished himself while 

 studying at the Royal College of Science under Sir William 

 Thiselton-Dyer, both by his great ability and his keen 

 enthusiasm. After further studies both at the University of 

 Cambridge and at Wiirzburg, under the late Professor Sachs, 

 he was appointed by the Government of Ceylon; in 1880, to 

 investigate the coffee-leaf disease in that island. He accom- 

 plished his task with considerable success and on his return in 

 1882, was elected Berkeley Fellow in the Owens College and 

 subsequently became assistant to the late Professor Williamson. 

 While in Manchester he published a number of botanical papers, 

 some of which appear in Vol. 1 of the Owens College Biological 

 Studies. They indicate that already at that time Ward's 

 attention was strongly drawn to the group of fungi in which 

 field of research he became one of the most prominent workers. 

 Throughout his original investigations he displayed an originality 

 and fertility of ideas and an indomitable perseverance which 

 have rarely been equalled. The expositions of his investigations 

 are characterised by a lucidity which carries conviction with it, 

 and the results he obtained will be of lasting interest and 

 importance. 



Marshall Ward left Manchester to take up the post of 

 Professor of Botany at the Royal Indian Engineering College at 

 Cooper's Hill, where for ten years he prepared his pupils on 

 Indian Woods and Forest Service. In 1895 he succeeded the 

 late Professor Babington in the chair of Botany at the Cambridge 

 University, which post he occupied with signal success until his 

 death, two years after the opening of the new botanical institute 

 at the University. This was the outward and visible manifesta- 

 tion of the great work he had done in raising the School of 

 Botany at Cambridge to the foremost in the Kingdom. 



But while Marshall Ward was always successful and inspiring 

 as a teacher his unremitting; work in botanical research raised 



