Obituary —David Thomas Gwynne- Vaughan. iii 
Lang was working at apogamy in Ferns, and on August 20, 1896, 
made his astonishing discovery of the occurrence of sporangia on the 
prothallus. Gwynne- Vaughan was present, and when they told me what 
Lang had found, I did not believe a word of it, but thought they were 
‘ chaffing \ However, it was quite serious, and within a few days another 
case of the same kind came to light in a different Fern. I mention this 
here, because Gwynne-Vaughan and Lang were working in the same room, 
and the former was just as keen on Lang’s results as the discoverer 
himself. 
In September, 1896, Gwynne-Vaughan was present at the Liverpool 
meeting of the British Association, and this visit had an important influence 
on his after career. He read a paper on ‘ The Arrangement of the Vascular 
Bundles in certain Nymphaeaceae ’. Professor Bower was impressed 
by this ‘ peculiarly lucid preliminary statement and at once offered 
Gwynne-Vaughan the Junior Assistantship in his laboratory at Glasgow. 
If Kew may claim to have first started Gwynne-Vaughan on original 
work, it was at Glasgow that he developed his most characteristic line of 
research. 
During the ensuing autumn Gwynne-Vaughan again worked at Kew, 
completing his paper on Nymphaeaceae and his investigation of the 
anatomy of Primula. The former was passed for publication by the 
Council of the Linnean Society on Dec. 17. Next day I said good-bye to 
him at Kew, and with the New Year (1897) his Glasgow career began. 
It was not long, however, before his energies were diverted for 
a time into other channels. He accepted a commission to undertake 
a journey in South America, up the rivers Amazon and Purus, to report 
on the Rubber production of the district for a commercial syndicate, 
starting on Oct. 9, 1897. 
He travelled 2,500 miles up the great river and its tributaries, and 
reached the Bolivian frontier. 
I am permitted to make some extracts from letters written on this 
and on the subsequent Malayan journey, to his half-sister in England. 
The first is from a letter, written between Obidos and Serpa, and post- 
marked 4/12/97 : 
£ But the journey up the Amazon is the most fascinating thing I have 
yet experienced. In parts we steam along a biscuit toss from the margin 
of the stream, which is bordered on either side by a solid wall, 60 ft. high, 
of virgin, impenetrable Forest of the most luxuriant tropical vegetation. 
Palms of various kinds stand out in delicate relief against the darker mass 
of giant trees of India-rubber, Mimosae , Bertholletia , &c., and the very 
water’s margin is crowded with gigantic plants of the Arum family, 
reaching even to 20 ft. high. It is vain to attempt to describe the posi- 
tively wanton prodigality of nature in these regions. Most of this Forest 
A* 2 
