xxvi Obituary. — Alfred Stanley Marsh. 
and A. filiculoides in Britain, and is a valuable basis for the study of these 
two interesting and rapidly spreading aliens. 
(3) ‘ The Anatomy of some Xerophilous Species of Cheilanthes and 
Pellaeal Ann. Bot., xxviii, pp. 671-84. 1914. In this paper Marsh gave 
a comparative account of the stelar anatomy of several closely related 
Ferns ; and in the case of the peculiar vascular structure of the petioles 
he showed that they could all be derived from Sinnott’s primitive type 
with three endarch protoxylems. 
(4) ‘ The Maritime Ecology of Holme-next-the-Sea, Norfolk.’ Journ. 
of Ecology, iii, pp. 65-92. 1915. This is the report of a valuable piece 
of work undertaken by a group of young Cambridge men, altogether ten 
in number. A short account of the work was given in 1913 before the 
British Association by P. ‘H. Allen (‘ by whose untimely death ’, Marsh 
writes, ‘ we lost a dear friend and a splendid fellow worker ’). Marsh 
was the chosen spokesman of this group of (in more senses than one) 
synecologists, and his paper is an admirable example of vegetational 
survey work and a demonstration of the possibilities of co-operation in 
ecological research. 
Marsh took a commission in November, 1914, in the 8th (Service) 
Battalion, Somerset Light Infantry. He was made First-Lieutenant in 
April, 1915, and got his Captaincy in August, being then only twenty- 
three years of age. Throwing himself whole-heartedly into his new duties 
he quickly won popularity with his men and the affection of his fellow 
officers. Letters from the Front, from officers and men alike, testify to the 
deep sorrow which his death inspired even among those to whom bereave- 
ments are of the texture of daily life. 
While devoting himself entirely to his military duties he longed for 
the time when he should be able again to take up the botanical work 
that he loved. His plans for the future included a continuance of the 
synecological work at Holme, a series of experiments on the relations 
of closely allied species to their different habitats, and a share (with his 
friend R. C. McLean) in an investigation of flower structure in the Ranales. 
His botanical interests were broad, and to every discussion he brought 
fresh and suggestive ideas and a power of seeing the distant implications of 
hypotheses. His earliest botanical enthusiasm was floristic, and he aston- 
ished one by his uncanny ability to state accurately the ‘census-number’ of 
every British flowering plant. His Cambridge training opened his eyes to 
the manifold avenues of research which Botany presents ; and though he 
had not yet settled down to any one definite line of work, it would 
probably have been some branches of Phylogenetic Anatomy and Ecology 
which would have claimed him. By his death botanical science is the 
poorer for the loss of a keen vision, an agile imagination, and an enthu- 
siastic capacity for work. 
