﻿part 1] ANNIVERSARY ADDKESS OE THE PRESIDENT. xlix 



finds it to be a subject of the highest interest to herself on 

 account of the prominence at present assumed by the point 

 of view of the theory of descent.' The publication of an 

 English translation in 1891 by the Clarendon Press conferred a 

 boon upon many students to whom Count Solms's involved and 

 difficult style was a serious obstacle. The book contains a mass 

 of valuable information, based in great measure on an actual 

 examination of the specimens described; it is characterized by 

 vigorous and discriminating criticism of the conclusions of previous 

 writers, and the whole bears striking testimony to the author's 

 grasp of his subject, his exceptional power of handling details 

 without losing sight of guiding principles, and his wonderful 

 energy. For many years Solms-Laubach contributed to the 

 ' Botanische Zeitung,' and later to the ' Zeitschrift fur Botanik, 1 

 critical summaries of recent work, which have played a con- 

 spicuous part in keeping botanical readers informed of the more 

 important results of palseobotanical enquiry. The great majority 

 of Solms-Laubach's published papers deal with petrified plants, and 

 it was but rarely that he concerned himself with impressions. He 

 made notable additions to our knowledge of the Paheozoic genera 

 Medullosa, JProtojntys, Sphenophyllum, and other types, and 

 supplied fresh data of special interest from an evolutionary point of 

 view. His researches into the structure of Lower Carboniferous and 

 Upper "Devonian plants yielded results of the greatest interest ; he 

 not only corrected the mistakes of earlier investigators, but presented 

 for the first time an accurate picture, so far as the fragmentary 

 nature of the material permitted, of the morphological characters 

 of some of the oldest known plants. The discovery of several new 

 generalized types gave emphasis to the view that the extinct 

 Devonian genera represent highly-complex terms in a series 

 extending back into ages far beyond those that have left any 

 decipherable records. The account of his investigations on Stig- 

 mariopsis and other plants in the quarries of St. Etienne threw 

 new light on a subject that is still far from exhausted, and in a 

 more recent paper he cleared up certain difficulties connected with 

 the method of growth of the root-encircled stems of Psaroniiis. 

 In collaboration with Capellini, Solms gave a systematic account 

 of the splendid Cycadean stems from Northern Italy in the 

 Bologna Museum, and, by his discovery of pollen-grains asso- 

 ciated with a female flower, foreshadowed the later discoveries 

 of Wieland, who had at his disposal the much more complete 

 vol. lxxii. d 



