viii Obituary. — Henry Harold Welch Pearson . 
has been through it and has brought everything except two out of the team 
of thirty donkeys to the end of the journey. ... I asked one of the Bastard 
Hottentots, who has now been under German government for years, what 
he thought of the Germans. He said they are “ the worstest people under 
the sun ” — and the Bastard has some reason for thinking so.’ In a letter to 
Prof. Herdman (published in ‘Nature’, March 2, 1916), written after his 
return to Cape Town, on January 28, Pearson referred to his journey 
through the semi-independent territory of the Bastard Hottentots, adding, 
‘No German dare venture into it, but when the people found I was English 
they could not do enough for me ’. 
Perhaps the most interesting of the many results of his researches on 
Wehvitschia is the discovery of the nature of the ‘ endosperm ’. ‘ I am now 
more than ever certain that the plant [ Welwitschia\ stands at the top of 
a series — I fear on a giddy pinnacle whose sides are so steep that there is no 
telling how it got there.’ In a later letter he says : ‘ I am nearly converted 
to your view of the possible relationship between the Gnetaceae and 
Angiosperms. The Wehvitschia endosperm has quite altered my point of 
view. I am going to try and prove that the Welwitschia endosperm is 
homologous with that of the Angiosperm, and, further, that it belongs neither 
to the gametophyte nor sporophyte generation, but is a structure sui 
generis. ... I must get hold of Gnetum africanum. If I can’t get the money 
for the whole trip of which I sent you an outline scheme ... I hope I shall 
at least be able to obtain, say, ^100 to enable me to go to Quetta, where 
the Gnetum grows.’ A substantial grant from the Trustees of the Percy 
Sladen Memorial Fund enabled him to carry out the scheme in 1908-9. 
In the earlier stages of development the embryo-sac of Welwitschia 
contains numerous free nuclei : this condition is followed by partial 
septation, which produces a tissue of multinucleate compartments. In 
the upper part of the embryo-sac each ‘ cell ’ has 1-2 nuclei, and later as 
many as 5, while in the lower part of the sac each ‘cell’ has 2-12 nuclei. 
The ‘ cells ’ with 2-5 nuclei in the micropylar region of the embryo-sac 
produce embryo-sac tubes which grow up towards the descending pollen- 
tubes. On March 3, 1908, he discussed the question of nomenclature with 
regard to the ‘ endosperm ’ : ‘In Gnetum and Welwitschia the embryo-sac 
becomes filled with nuclei, all of which are probably capable of being 
fertilized, i.e. all are potential gametes. Of these a few are functional. The 
remainder, or most of them, fuse in groups of 7, 8, 9, 10, or more, and form 
a number of fusion-nuclei which I believe to be homologous with the 
definitive nucleus of the Angiosperm. These fusion-nuclei on division give 
rise to a tissue whose later growth is considerable, and is so highly organized 
that the tissue (endosperm) must be regarded as an organism. This organism 
is not in the direct line of the life-cycle and belongs neither to the sporophyte 
nor to the gametophyte. Now as the term endosperm is physiological (accord- 
