WILLIAM RANDOLPH TAYLOR, the international authority on marine algae, is now formally retiring from his active offices in the Department of Botany and the University Herbarium at the statutory age of seventy.

A native of Philadelphia, Professor Taylor followed an orthodox Philadelphian path from the William Penn Charter School to the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned the baccalaureate in 1916, the Master of Science in 1917, and the doctorate in 1920. At Pennsylvania, and at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, where he studied and taught in the summer, he was elevated quickly to professorial rank. In 1930 he accepted an appointment at Michigan as Professor of Botany and Curator of Algae in the University Herbarium. And here-saving his occasional disposition to seek some remote shoreline-he has subsequently been at home.

In the course of attaining commanding stature in his field, he prepared a succession of volumes of which the fifth, and perhaps the most significant, has come out within this decade. The research entering into these has taken him from the northeastern United States to the tropical Atlantic, the Straits of Magellan, the Pacific coasts of North. South, and Central America, the Marshall Islands, Java, the Philippines, and elsewhere. Attending Operation Crossroads as senior biologist, he emerged a kind of symbol of the pacifism inherent in pure science, with materials in hand on which to base a study of the plant life of the battered atoll, Bikini. Among his many professional offices were those of president of the American Phycological Society and of the phycology section of the Eighth International Congress of Botany in Paris; editorial board member of the periodicals Biological Bulletin and Hydrobiologia; and perennial trustee of the Biological Station at Woods Hole. He had conferred on him the highest award of the Botanical Society of America and the honorary vice-presidency of the Tenth International Botanical Congress of two years ago.

In his department Professor Taylor was an inspiring director of advanced work; nor did he ever lose his ability to communicate appropriate parts of his knowledge to undergraduates. He lent direction to all botanical studies here as distinguished senior man in the field and contributed to the total shape of scholarship in the University as a member of committees on research and publication. In 1964 he appropriately held the highest honor, which the faculty members of this University can confer on a peer, the Henry Russel Lectureship.

The Regents of the University respectfully salute Professor Taylor on the occasion of his change of status, and thank him most warmly for his tangible services and for the honor he has brought the University through his association with it. They hope that he will long benefit his colleagues and this institution by his continued presence as Professor Emeritus of Botany.